Eufaula NWR on Facebook

How I love social media. I really do. Sure, some people use it for bad things, but I like it for its “bringing people together” capabilities. While we all might be behind a computer screen, having access to pictures, text, video, and many types of communication applications at your fingertips is so cool, and can really united people. I grew up with computers just starting to be placed in our classrooms during the 90′s. We usually had 1 computer per classroom, and we had “computer class” in which we sat at our old Apple computers in the single computer lab learning to type “The quick brown fox…” blah, blah, blah. Fast forward almost 20 years, and here I am blogging pictures which maybe you’ll read on your tablet while on a flight, on your smartphone while waiting for a doctors appointment, or on your laptop while watching tv tonight. It’s cool, and I love it. I’m truly a Millenial!

SO, why am I blabbing on and on about all of this? Well, I want my dear blogging audience to follow me on Facebook now! I am moderating our refuge page (Eufaula NWR on Facebook!), so click there.. then “like” the page, please! And while you’re at it, you should look up other government agency Facebook pages…other refuges, national parks, state parks, etc. It’s a cool way to “connect” even though you may be thousands of miles away.

Greetings, from the entrance to our 7 mile wildlife drive. Open 1.5 hours pre and post daylight, 365 days a year!

 

I’ve been camera trapping, as usual, and doing odd jobs while I’m waiting for my background investigation to clear, and for the waterfowl hunts to begin in another week. Tomorrow I’m taking a hunter safety course, which will be interesting. I’ve never taken one before. I don’t really have plans to hunt while I’m here (but, maybe?), but I think it’s a good idea to have a solid understanding of state law when it comes to hunting regulation, as I will be running waterfowl hunts through out the winter months.

I’m really enjoying life here in southeastern Alabama. Here are some images and brief narrative. I’m hoping to do some solid blogging soon!  

“Scent wick” in the foreground with doe estrus on it. These are used to apply scent to lure animals into a trap set, whether it be camera or other. There are a variety of scents used from urine to anal glands to perfume even! In this case, I wanted to see if I could get an interested buck to appear. No luck, but I DID capture a bobcat (Lynx rufus) passing through. He or she was disinterested in deer scent.

Another visitor to my set. I have another, lesser quality picture, that indicates THIS animal was drawn in by the scent of doe. This being the better image, is the one I decided to share. Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) are quite common here. I’ve seen 1 or 2, and cam trapped them about the same over the past 3 weeks. Beautiful animals.

Common buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) see in our Upland Unit, right off the side of the wildlife drive. These medium sized butterflies are very common, very beautiful, and you can’t help but take a good picture of them.

Pied-billed grebes (Podilymbus podiceps), seen November 2nd, on our Houston Unit.

I’ve now seen 2 timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus), and unfortunately both have been hit by cars in the road. Yes, they are venomous, but they will not seek confrontation out. THIS particular snake was alive when I slowed my truck in the road. I was going to drag it off the road with a iron rake, but noticed it was obviously hurt. It coiled into a strike/defensive position, and rattled at me. Can’t blame it. I regretfully turned around and did a mercy run-over, as there was no fixing his issues. Just like turtles in NY, people AIM for these creatures when they see them in the road. Why? I do not know.

Enjoy your weekend, where ever you are in this beautiful country!

2 new camera trapped species!

Life in Eufaula, Alabama is just fine, and I’m really enjoying it! The birding is great, the weather has been great, my dog is loving exploring with me, and the food is fantastic!

Of course you know I brought my camera traps with me (Cuddeback Attack Flash and an IR Bushnell Trophy Cam), as I do where ever I move to. I’ve been here about 2 weeks, and I’ve gotten 2 new species for my bucket list. Enjoy!

Addie knows something lives just beyond her reach…but what is it?

A nine-banded armadillo! Just behind it, is a hole that it dug out to scoot under the fence, much to Addie’s frustration. This is a new species for me!

Gray fox. I first “trapped” these in the Outer Banks of NC, and then also in Cobleskill, NY.

Another new species! A fox squirrel. These are found in the Southern Tier/Finger Lakes of NY, but I’ve never seen them.

Fox squirrel

Fox squirrel

Nine-banded armadillo

Gray squirrel

Stay tuned for more! There are MANY more interesting critters here that I’m hoping to catch on camera!

Check these videos out...

I have 3 weeks left in my semester (WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) so time is short. But I got a few cool videos on my camera trap a few weeks ago, and I figured I'd share them!

The camera is a Bushnell Trophy Cam HD, and this was taken in Schoharie, NY.

I used the following scent lure to see who I could get to respond to it (really was hoping for a bobcat):

 

Fisher

 

 

American Crows (wait til the end...they almost take out my camera!)

 

 

The elusive gray fox...I love these small Canids, and I'm happy to have gotten one in my backyard!

 

 

 Camera-trapping is so addictive! I've said it before, and anyone else who's a 'trapper I'm sure will agree!



Gray Foxes, Galore!

I've not had a really good gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) sighting before, except the sighting mentioned in this entry: A *NEW* Camera Trapped Species back in the spring of 2012, while I was visiting the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

These little canines intrigue me, because they are so cat-like and small!

This past weekend, I was back in Western, NY visiting my parents for the weekend. My mom and I were driving to a nearby apple orchard to get cider and apples and something caught my eye on the side of the road. In mid-sentence, I asked my mom to stop and pull over, so I could go look. She rolled her eyes, but stopped the car and let me run back and look....

 

This beautiful (young, female) gray fox had recently been struck by a vehicle.

 

I looked her over really quickly, and determined that I wanted to take it to study it a bit closer later, and not on the side of the road in the pouring rain. So, my mother let me put it in a shopping bag, and allowed me to take it back to their house to properly bag and freeze it. It's now in a freezer in the taxidermy lab at SUNY Cobleskill, where I'm a student, until I can properly do something with it. That will probably be another entry though...

 

For now, I want to address the gray fox's feet:

 

As a mentioned above, they are so cat-like. I distinctly remember learning in the Intro to Fish and Wildlife class I took at FLCC, that the gray fox have semi-retractable nails. Other canids (red fox, coyotes, wolves, domestic dogs) can not retract their claws, but all cats can fully retract them. Sometimes tracks left behind by the gray fox don't have nails that show, since they can retract them! The gray foxes have also been known to CLIMB trees, which totally astounds me! Elbroch (Mammal Tracks & Sign) says they may even BED above ground in a shrub or tree!

Check out Blazin' Trailblazer's Climbing Canine entry for some great pictures of a gray fox climbing...

 

...and Nature of a Man's Lazy Willow entry for some MORE great pictures...super cool!

Maybe I can catch a GF scaling a tree too someday...


Gray fox feet are very small, comparitively to other dogs. I think of a red fox, and I think of a small dog. Grays, for some reason, seem to be less ...observable. I was going to say less common, but I don't know if that is the case. They seem a bit more skittish than the reds, except for that one I saw in North Carolina. Many people have a harder time envisioning how big a gray fox is.

Here are some sizes for comparison:

     -A solid, adult labrador retriever (like the 2 year old my parents own) weighs about 80 lbs.
     -A gray wolf: 60-154 lbs*
     -A coyote: 20-50 lbs*
     -A red fox: 8-15 lbs*
     -A gray fox: 7-15 lbs*
     -A domestic cat: On average, I think they're about 9-11 lbs.

*Taken from Mammals of North America, Fiona Reid 2006.

A pet cat could easily be the same size or larger than a gray fox. Here are some paw pictures I took for comparison.

My pet cat, Sassy's paw on the left.

Gray fox paw on the right.

 

You can see that the toe pads on the fox are relatively larger than that of Sassy's, but the overall outline/size of the paws is similar, especially if seen by a rookie like myself. Tracking is difficult, and animals with tracks so similar to each other as domestic cat and gray fox. Dogs typically have an "oval" shape to them, and cats "round", but in smudgy imperfect snow or mud...it can be hard to decipher.

 

There are some differences though, and I found this neat website with the breakdown of the minutia between dog and cat tracks: Canine vs. Feline.

Also, notice that nub of a toe that each critter has further up the leg. That's the heel pad, and it often doesn't register...but it can, especially in a deep substrate. This can only further confuse things between the two species...

According to Elbroch, measurements are as follows for domestic cat and gray fox tracks:

     -Domestic cat:   Front 1-1 5/8" L x 7/8-1 3/4" W
                                Rear 1 1/8-1 1/2" L x7/8-1 5/8" W

     -Gray fox:          Front 1 3/8-1 7/8" L x1 3/16"- 1 3/4" W
                                Rear 1 1/4-1 3/4" L x15/16- 1 1/2" W


Finally, I have to share a final few pictures. After being away from where I live in East/Central NY, where I've moved for school, for the weekend...I anxiously checked my camera trap that I have rigged up when I got back. I could not believe the results:

All 3 pictures have a gray fox in the picture. Now, the question is: are they all the same individual? Or are they different animals? Perhaps that's another blog entry as well. I just can't believe that this malfunctioning camera actually pulled through for me this weekend, thank goodness. Talk about coincidence!

Love & Spring is in the Air! Camera Trapping Heaven.

Hello, hello!

Since my last blog posting, literally minutes after I hit "Publish",...my computer became horribly infected with a wormy virus. All files (school documents and pictures primarily) appeared to have disappeared forever. To my chagrin, tech support of the company I purchased the laptop was NOT helpful in anyway...but a friend sent me a lovely link that walked me step-by-step through rediscovering my hidden files, backing them up externally, and then removing the virus. I was able to do steps 1 and 2, but 3 had me bringing my computer to Staples yesterday morning to leave it to get reformatted and fixed. Because of this, I am without my photo editing software for a few days...and I have the last day of my NC Spring Break vacation that I wanted to share...including a large and awesome mega-fauna that I saw the last night. For now, I'm blogging from school :)

But, for now, I'll share some awesome camera trap photos that I've been neglectful on sharing. Just too much going on!

These pics will be from both the tail end of my Outer Banks trip, and then weeks 5 & 6 from my field study at the Muller Field Station.

Domestic cat

Domestic cat #2

Virginia opossum

And my favorite friend of the week, Urocyon cinereoargenteus, the gray fox.

And here he/she is again! After having never gotten a gray fox on cameras that I personally set, I was so excited to have visits from this one night after night. I baited at first with Kishel's 'Crossbreed' a carnivore/predator food call lure. Stink-y. Then I poured some bacon grease, and threw a couple chunks of rotten coconut out. This kept the critters coming back :)

Last camera-trapped picture of the week, an opossum.

I did move this camera to the Nags Head Woods Nature Preserve a few miles away, where I saw the nutria...hoping for THAT new species. I realize to the locals, nutria are nasty, invasive pests. To me though, lover of (almost) all wildlife, this critter was on my bucket list. I was so excited to have observed them here, and baited my camera with apples and pears. I have pictures of the set up, on my external hard drive, at home. I always like to take a 'before' and 'after' shot of my sites so that I can remember what the setup looked like and if it worked.

Well, the next day when Mady and I went back to the secret spot to retrieve the camera and pics...all fruit was gone. We were ECSTATIC. What else could've eaten all that fruit? No 'chucks in the area, or beaver (surprisingly)...so it had to be nutria. And then the ol' camera malfunction occured. One picture. Of me retrieving it. I don't understand! It was at the correct height and distance from the bait...and no pictures. Stupid nutria probably covered the lens with a paw. Next time nutria, next time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moving on...

I came back to check my cameras on this GORGEOUS March Monday the 19th. The last time I was at the Muller Field Station was March 5th. Two weeks ago today, the temperature was 16*F. Today was 65*F. WHAT a difference, I was actually breaking a sweat while resetting my cameras! No complaints here though.

Red fox

White-tailed deer

White-tailed deer

Can you believe this? MARCH and a buck with antlers?! I hope he drops them nearby so I can find them!

Mystery critter?

A pair of 'coons! First time I've ever gotten more than one raccoon at a time. Joe at Massanutten Game Trails has awesome pics of herds of 'coon. I'll settle for two :)

Another NEW species for me: muskrat! Can you pick him out?

A red fox with dinner for the family? It's got to be about that time when females are ready to pop, and looking for a good den...

Another gorgeous red fox pic, in the daylight! What a gorgeous coat...

Eastern coyote (this guy seems bigger and burlier to me than the red wolves I saw last week...)

White-tailed deer in motion...anyone else get a blur with fast motion in front of your cams?

Wild turkey! Another newbie! Please watch the following video, and watch til the end :)

Another pair!

Canada Geese...and yet ANOTHER pair! Is Spring in the air or WHAT? Makes me think of my beloved childhood movie, Bambi.

Raccoon

NAUGHTY opossum chewing in the scent pad again...I wonder if this is a repeat offender?

Another critter picking dinner on the way home from work. Gray squirrel

And THAT is that. Alot of pictures, and I didn't even share HALF of them! I need to spend mucho time going through all that video- never skip out on video, and always watch til the end! Thank goodness they're only 30 second clips at a time.

Until the next time!

A *NEW* Camera Trapped Species, Roanoke Island Aquarium & a Sunset Wildlife Drive

Before I share what I did today in the Outer Banks, I want to share a few pictures I got on my camera trap last night. I went outside around 9:45pm to set it up. The back yard is very small, a postage stamp yard, closed in on all 4 sides by houses with a little bit of brush separating the yards. So it was obviously dark out, and I was unfamiliar with the yard and the property boundaries so I decided to just set the camera on the ground in the back corner and hope for a bird or maybe a squirrel.

To maximize my chances of catching something, I used my no-fail scent lure 'Crossbreed' by Kishels Scents. By no-fail, I mean I've ALWAYS gotten something to come in to it...albeit rarely carnivores, but deer/birds/squirrels seem to be interested in it. I brought with me a Cuddeback Attack Flash, and set it on 15 seconds. As I was shuffling around in the dark, trying to set the scent, and the camera, I heard a rustling of leaves. I looked up, and shined the flashlight in the direction of the noise. Eyeballs. There were some nice, shiny little eyeballs looking at me through the brush trying to figure me out. I thought at first it was a pet cat, but as the critter moved around me, never coming closer than 10 feet, I had a feeling it was something else. I REALLY wanted it to be a wild animal, even though I am staying in the heart of vacaction homes and development...I had hope. Here are my results:

A gray fox! This is a first of this species for me, and I literally had the animal come to me as I was setting the camera!

I apologize for the overexposure, but this little guy came very close to the camera, and the flash is VERY bright so it's washed out. I reset the camera, and hung it a foot off the ground, so hopefully he'll come back :)

Gray fox again?

Domestic cat

American Robin- another new species!

Ok, onto what I did today.

I slept in, and it was wonderful. Still feeling the effects of driving 10.5 hours, getting up early yesterday, and just generally loving being on vacation. Once we got moving, and out of the house we headed for Roanoke Island to check out the aquarium. This aquarium had very neat exhibits focusing on all of the diverse types of wetlands found in and around the 'banks.

River otter sunbathing in their exhibit

Turtles basking

American alligator

Red snapper (I think)

Pufferfish

Mady at the touch tanks with rays in it! Very strange feeling, slimy...but kind of rough like sand paper.

Shark tank...floor to ceiling and wall to wall...VERY COOL!

After the aquarium, we spent our afternoon shopping and sightseeing along the Croatan Highway. We stopped back at the house briefly to grab sweatshirts and grab all of our "gear" and headed back out to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge for a crepuscular drive all the Wildlife Drive. It was a BEAUTIFUL, cloudless, sunny day with the makings for a gorgeous sunset.

I counted 14 Turkey Vultures!

Myself and Mady @ ARNWR 3/11/2012, 6:35pm

We got back in the car....only to drive a quarter mile and SLAM on the breaks and jump out of the car because we found...

A BLACK BEAR!

TB, I have to thank you for sending us good BEAR JU-JU last night in your comment on yesterday's entry!

After watching her for awhile, we decided to move on a look for more critters. We made a left and found this National Geographic moment...the black bear grazing in the light from the sunset. A truly awe-inspiring moment for us both. And this was Mady' 1st wild BB!

Another awesome day on the Outer Banks! Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.