Getting Down with the Munks

Time for another installment of the Cuteness Chronicles...

Two of the many delights at the SFSU Sierra Nevada Field Campus are the carpets of Brewer's Mat Lupine, Lupinus breweri, and the multitudes of Long-eared Chipmunks, Neotamias quadrimaculatus.

During this year's camera trapping workshop by the Codger, I thought I'd combine both by setting a 16 mega pixel, continuously-auto-focusing (down to 4") homebrew cam trap on the ground in a patch of lupine, with a sprinkle of seeds in front.

Here are the results...

























Another reason I think this mix so fitting - chipmunks and lupines can both be a serious pain to sort to species. In California there are 13 chipmunk species, often with 2-3 in an area, and 73 lupine species, often with a dozen in an area, and covering 4-1/2 pages of keys in Jepson.

I guess cute works in many niches.

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References:

• SFSU Sierra Nevada Field Campus
• Camera Trap Codger - 2014 Workshop
• Wikipedia - Long-eared Chipmunk
• Jepson eFlora - Lupinus breweri
• Jepson eFlora - Lupine keys
• Calflora - Lupinus breweri

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