Cam Check

Sunday was a beautiful day to get up on Mt. Tam and check my trail cams.

This morning my wife dropped me off with my ebike at the gate across from the closed Pantoll parking lot, and from there I rode up to Rock Spring, hiked out to the cams, then rode back home to San Francisco. I'd thought about trying to ride the whole round-trip, but I wasn't sure I'd have enough battery power to pull it off. I rode home trying to save power by using "battery off" mode on downhills and level ground and found I still used maybe 2/5 of the battery. Would 3/5 have gotten me up the mountain from home (about 22 miles each way)? I think it would have been pretty close. Something to try another day. I found several working electrical outlets near the Mountain Theater and thought I might use one next time to recharge the battery while I hike.

Bright-eyed foxes and other usual suspects. Still no Bigfoot appearance.

Here's that big dusky-footed wood rat again. He showed up quite a few times at this cam site. Nice ears.

Early morning light on a field of False Lupine.

I liked seeing how the weather changed on April 16. Here it's about 8:30 in the morning...

...and here it's ten hours later.

Lots of turkeys gobbling on the mountain today.

Serpentine Onion 

(or sickle-leaf onion, Allium falcifolium)

This jackie must have been moving pretty quickly, tripping this cam at 8:30...

...then this one two seconds later.... 

No, not quite. I do reset the time on each cam when I change batteries, but they are not actually synchronized to the second.

I just love how perfect this fox's fur looks.

I also love how happy this coyote looks.

Phone shot of a mossy oak tree glistening with dew in the morning light.

Lots of spotted coral root taking over the native orchid duties from the calypsos.

Nice antlers coming in. 

First fawn of the season.

Pretty great camouflage.

Had to stop and feast my soul on beautiful Bolinas Ridge one last time before heading home. Such a beautiful day, not too hot or cold, and not even too windy yet. The green is still refreshingly beautiful, but it's fading, and I won't be surprised if it's brown the next time I get up there. A whole spring is going to come and go while we're all taking shelter from the coronavirus, but with a little luck they'll open the mountain up soon.

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Changing Times

I'm glad to see the trap is still picking up a bobcat, keeping my hopes alive that I'll eventually capture a couple of bobkittens tagging along. The time on all of these is still PST since I didn't get around to updating them to PDT until today.

Big-Eyed Mouse.

I have a video clip of the mouse coming in from the right side of the frame, and it looks almost as big as an American pika.

Leaping into the manzanita.

Another leaping rodent.

Spotted Towhee.

I hadn't caught a Band-Tailed Pigeon since back when the traps were set down by a creek-bed pool.

So my wife and I looked over these manzanita plants this morning and could not find sign of deer-browsing on the leafy stems. I had wondered if they could simply be eating the flowers, and am pretty sure that's what they're doing. In some clips, the deer press into the brush to reach farther back, even though there are plenty of leaves right up front. I've gotta think they are reaching for fresh bunches of flowers.

The fox has been paying the camera no mind.

I've started picking up a jackrabbit in the area also.

And several turkeys pass through once in a while. We heard quite a bit of gobbling on the mountain this morning.

The buck deer are already beginning to grow back their antlers.

We were surprised by how few people were on the mountain. Even by the time we headed back to San Francisco, only a dozen or so cars were parked at Rock Spring.  

Ironically, the only person we saw in the woods, despite the fact that we were on regular trails quite a bit, was a guy walking a deer trail through the chaparral and heading right for the manzanita camera trap. I'd already collected the SD card, so I guess I'll find out next week if he spotted the cam. 

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Manzanita Munchers

Besides the several hundred empty frames fired off by insects or flitting birds at this trap over the last couple of weeks, the only thing I noticed that hadn't shown up in the last batch was the deer browsing manzanita. Maybe new leaves are coming out that are just tender enough to be palatable. The manzanita have also come into bloom, which might explain the sudden and major increase of empty frames set off by flying insects, of which only the butterflies were big enough to notice.

Young buck about to nosh on manzanita.

Bewick's Wren

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The Scent Post

Morning Bobcat
(clip from video)

View Larger at YouTube

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Chaparral Cam

You'd think the neighborhood gray fox contingent would be used to seeing trail cams by now, but I keep moving them around. Surprise! Sorry, buddy. At least there's no real harm. Although I'm not planning to move the cams anymore for a little while, I realize they will take some getting used to.

None of the three trail cams I've had out for the last two weeks caught any buck deer with antlers, so I'm wondering whether everyone's lost their antlers by now, or if they've simply wandered out of the area after making the does hapai. 

The cam doesn't glow with an array of red lights in the daytime and is easier to ignore, although it does still making a faint clicking sound when it fires. Here the fox goes toward the woods at 8:50 a.m.

Only to come back at a trot nearly 10 minutes later.

Hermit thrush.

Yikes! Sorry!

Five days later the fox doesn't seem to mind the cam at all. I can't tell if he's thinking about snagging that flying insect. I set this cam to shoot stills only, although when I reset it on Friday I changed it back to stills and 10-second videos.

I'm wondering if the trail cams will know it's a leap year.

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Foxy Woods

It's pretty rare for the cams to record a gray fox while the day is still bright enough to capture a color image.

It's also rare that a fox will stop long enough for the cam to capture a clean, sharp image.

Although there was this one main game trail, the area was crisscrossed by several other smaller trails that were also used by both deer and fox. This fox is on the main trail now but will take a detour, only to cross it later, as shown in the next shot.

The main trail goes up to the left of the big Douglas fir, but the fox took a different route. The fox(es) were caught coming and going off the right side of the frame several times. Next time I go up I might move a cam or two to try to catch them in the detour.

This time the fox stays on the main trail until it passes the large Doug fir. Here it's 9:12 p.m.

And here, at 9:13 p.m., we have the same fox. You can even see that the video lights from Cam #2 (which remain on for a specified length of time) are still on in the background. 

Although I synchronized the cams to my wristwatch, they are synced to the minute, not the second; the video only records for 20 seconds.

This frame looks a lot like the next one, but I believe these are two different foxes. One passes at 6:40 p.m., and the next capture is at 6:46 p.m.

If these are a paired-up male and female, I might catch fox kits here in the future. And just because I want to share a couple more trail-cam shots that don't have a theme of their own, I bring you...

...the Mini-Buck...

...a Mini-Buck in pretty light...

...and a passing hobo!

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