Backwater Bassariscus

Ringtail, ring-tailed cat, miner's cat, civet cat, and Bassariscus astutus.

All are noms for the marvelous lifelister I caught while cam trapping with the Codger's wise guidance (or is that wise-guy dance? Hmmmm...).

An oft-elusive raccoon-relative of rocky river canyons, one might not guess ringtails would be found in Sac Valley wetlands. But they are - the Sacto backwaters have become a home.

Perhaps it's because their infamous haven, Sutter Buttes, is nearby. Or, maybe it's the heaps of yummy year-round forage for them in the dense woods and waterways (small rodents, insects, fruits, berries, birds, eggs...).

Whatever their reason for residence, places that make ringtails happy make us Cali-mammal-huggers happy. The seldom-seen ringer is a Fully Protected Species in California, with dwindling habitat and pocket-populations, and thus a species in need of such sanctuaries.

But, instead of waxing all Wikipedia, I'll just offer up these shots to give you a glimpse into the amazing lemur-like coolness, and curious, cute quickness, of the Bassariscus that visited the muddy rootball and late-night latrine of my Sac Valley set:



















A good first catch of ringtail. And given their character, I might never get enough.

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - California Bayous
• Camera Trap Codger - posts on ringtails
• Wikipedia - Ring-tailed Cat
• Wikipedia - Sutter Buttes

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California Bayous

Some years back, a few friends and I took a Louisiana bayou tour just outside of New Orleans. It was cheesy, but fun. Shared cheese often is.

Aside from the camaraderie, the best part of the cruise wasn't actually the scenery and wildlife - it was the storytelling, deep voice, and gravelly accent of the character Cajun man that gave us the tour. For us, he made the cruise.

"Down here on da bayou, ya got yore possum, yore raccoon, yore squirrel, rabbit 'n rat."

"Or, as we call 'em - da weekday dinnars."

Serious local flavor.

Back on December 2nd, Codger and I started a little wetland cam trapping in the Sacramento Valley that reminded me of that day on the bayou. Maybe it was all the mosquitoes.


Tree and shrub shrouded waterways


Deep, dense canopy and understory

In a tangle of pokeweed, blackberries and poison oak, I set a cam on a large fallen tree.


The tangle where my cam trap was set

The eroding, muddy rootball of the downed-tree was about 4 feet off the ground, and - in a dent in the dirt - had a midsize-mammal latrine on it. Seemed the perfect spot.

As you've likely learned from the Codger and Camera U, we didn't know at the time how fortuitous that 4 feet of clearance would be for my cam.

It survived the December deluges, and ran until the batteries died, taking 273 pics.

And, much like the bayou, it got yore possum, yore raccoon, yore squirrel, rabbit 'n rat.











And, since it's a latrine, it got yore possum and raccoon pooping too.





Plus, yore wet possum sniffin' dem scats.



Of these characters, the cottontail is actually a bit odd. What's it doing up on a downed tree? Even the Codge was perplexed by the behavior.

Wild turkey, spotted towhee and hermit thrush also dropped in - 3 birds you might too see in the backwoods of Louisiana.

Last - this cam also caught me an elusive wishlister that we had heard was around, and the wise Codger predicted I'd get - yet I still almost didn't believe when I saw it.

One that definitely ain't found down on da bayou...

:)

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References:

• Camera Trap Codger - Camera U's final gift

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The Cautious Cougar

An old, well-loved horse had died down in the Tehachapis, and in the fashion of ranches, the carcass was taken out to a "respectful distance" to be returned to nature.

By the time we happened by, the clean up was well underway, but we still wanted to set a cam to see who the late mourners might be.

Unfortunately, all we had was a low-qual Moultrie trail cam. But they do video, so we set it for that, and figured we'd pretty much get lots o' grainy vids of vultures by day 'n coyotes by night.


Camera set on the late horse

Alas, all we really caught was curious cattle and cattle dogs. And the cattle quickly knocked the cam around until it was pointing at nothing but rocks and ground.

However...

As you can see below, we did get one short video that's fun and educational.

Seems kitty, who came up from the creek (stage right in scene), didn't like the smell of the humans and dogs, and decided to exit the scene cautiously yet quickly...



Probably not a bad quality to have in mountain lions.

That, and a taste ONLY for deer...

:)

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts on cam trapping the Tehachapis

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Marauders at the Mini Mine

As we just saw, those sibling black bears are really getting around.

Here's the story of a 3rd location, and another adventure in camera trapping...

Over a mile up the creek from where we first saw Chocolate 'n Sable, and not quite 3 from The Lazy Willow, there's a notch in the hillside, and a mini mine, that appears to be in limestone.

It's about 3-foot high and 4-foot wide, and I have no idea how far it goes back - being crawling height, we didn't much wanna sort it out during bear denning season.

But us cam trappers love mines and caves and nooks and such. They attract cool critters, and can yield interesting, photogenic scenes. 

So, we couldn't help but set a cam - outside, pointing out - to see what might come in or out:


Camera near entrance to mini mine

In the case of this mine, our "cool critters" turned out to be the sibling bears, and our "interesting, photogenic scene" the rock hillside, as the bears quickly had their way with the camera...











Blasted cute bears.

The sequence kinda suggests they may have come out of the mine, but that could just be a happenstance of trigger timing.

Regardless, we're definitely gonna have to set this mini mine again.

But next time with a much sturdier post.

Haven't I said that before?

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Lazy Willow
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Meek and the Mighty
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts on cam trapping the Tehachapis

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The Lazy Willow

Since there's little that can follow that Wowcat, I won't even try.

Instead, we'll move back to the usual suspects - black bears and gray foxes.

But this time with tricks!

Well, not really. But, a little bit.

Down the crick and canyon from our Tehachapan glug, glug set, there's a willow that fell long ago, yet continued to grow. This lazy ole willow seems to have wanted some attention, because it chose the creek-side animal path to lie down across.

And, by the worn track in the grass, the critters are fine with it.

They just seem to howdy and hop over old willow.

So, we set a cam on the scene to see who the bold might be.



We also dabbed scent on the willow, in hopes the crossers might pause and climb for a sniff.

And, as mentioned - like many of our Tehachapi sets - the gray foxes and black bears were not camera shy, or even willow shy.

The grays in particular had no problem tip-toeing up the willow. Being a hooked-claw fox that can actually climb less lazy trees, that's not surprising though. But still terribly cute.













I'm glad we're seeing multiple, healthy-looking gray foxes at each set. They can be a bit of an indicator species for eco-system impacts/changes. Up in the Bay Area, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, they seem to be in decline as humans encroach, and coyotes kill and out-compete them. The eastern red fox also seems to be moving in on them in some regions of California.

Seeing these 2 curious bears at multiple sets is also great, but proving to be a bit tricky as they play with and move our cams, and once again get them water-spotty from their fun in the creek.

Chocolate was first to the scene for a whiff 'n sniff, but sibling Sable wasn't too far behind...











Note that the small, spring-fed drainage, where we caught our clockwork cougar, and met these mighty sibs, is about 2 miles by road and easy-travel path from this lazy willow.

So these 2 are definitely getting around. And, we're not done with them in this round of sets...

Btw - data points such as these can start to give a sense of local bear ranges, and later maybe even an estimate of the regional bear population.

Woohoo! Science!

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Meek and the Mighty
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Clockwork Cougar
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts of cam trapping in the Tehachapis

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Cool Cat #3 - The Wowcat

Cool cat número tres was quite a wow when we saw the pic on the 'puter.

Kinda photo that really jumps out at ya, and tickles our fear-of-the-monster-in-the-night genes.

And, one that also screams for a caption contest.

To me, this lion's posture is saying the same thing as that darling spotted skunk's:

"Don't make me use this..!"



The photo also really shows the power of white-flashing, auto-focusing and auto-adjusting homebrews. Checkity-check this tight crop - you can count kitty's whiskers:



And those ear notches and nose scars - badass.

Btw - don't you go thinking that cougars are indifferent to cam traps - this puma stopped for several shoulder shots as it sniffed and rubbed the camera. Here's one:



Maybe memorizing my scent for a future hunt? Hmmm... :)

8 critter photos and 176 false triggers. And those 8 gave us bobcat, polecat and wowcat.

Lucky set, and 3 very cool cats.

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - Cool Cat #2 - The Polecat
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - 3 Cool Cats
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts on cam trapping in the Tehachapis

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