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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Coyote Bliss

This was the view when I arrived in the early morning, sometime between 7 and 7:30, which is when I usually get to work on a Friday but, especially since I didn't get out of the city last week, I was feeling the need for some mountain magic, and luckily I was able to take the day off.

When I stopped at the same spot on my way home I was surprised to find a coyote snoozing in the grass, and surprised again when he didn't run off. I hadn't brought my Nikon gear since I'd only planned to check my camera traps and just roam around to let the mountain drain the poisons of so-called civilization out of me. (It was warm, with virtually no wind, and might have been a good day to bring a book to read, but I'm on the last chapter of Jared Diamond's Upheaval - Turning Points for Nations in Crisis, and, well, Wrong Book to bring to a nature reboot.)

I put my phone cam up to one side of my binoculars to get a shot of the coyote snoozing...

...and blissing out in the warm sunshine.

I followed the coyote around on his circuit after he finally got up. He crossed the road and poked around the Sunset Point meadow, the re-crossed the road to head out toward these calla lilies where he lapped up some muddy water before continuing out the trail to the right, then doubling back on a lower trail (red circle). He caught several small critters that weren't gophers, and which I can only guess were grasshoppers or some other small insect.

I also collected some toyon berries in the hope of getting at least one to sprout in my back yard.

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Children's Garden

At Strybing Arboretum

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