House special: Merganser and crab legs



Dr. Michael Losito performing a
necropsy on a Common Merganser
at SUNY Cobleskill.

A few weeks ago, in my Waterfowl Management & Ecology course, our professor performed a necropsy on a Common Merganser (Mergus merganser) so that students could get a good look at internal and external anatomy. We started with external parts, feather groups and names, feet type and toe orientation. Then he cut into the bird, and eventually removed most of it's internal organs. I personally love dissections/necropsies. It's really interesting to especially look at a "fresh", and I use that term relatively, specimen as opposed to something that's been soaking in perservatives and chemicals for who knows how long...

Since I'm always thinking of my camera trap sets, and it was dead already, and pretty mangled, I asked Dr. Losito if I might have the carcass. I explained that it would make great bait to leave in front of my Bushnell Trophy Cam, and he agreed. So, we bagged the Merg' up, and off I went.

In the spring, at this location, I had hung a Wild Turkey drumstick that a friend of mine had given me after he got a spring bird. The way I hung it made for months of entertainment. I'm sure it was smelly, but there was no purchase for critters to rely on to steal it from me. So they were drawn in but couldn't make off with the prize. Fishers especially tried and tried. That Turkey leg is still hanging, but there hasn't been meat on it for quite awhile. I decided to bring this Merg' up to this spot, and hang it in the exact same location.

 

So I put it up with hopes of a fisher and/or bobcat coming through. I just passed the 1 year mark since I captured my first and only bobcat picture almost in the same spot as where my camera is now. Alas, no Mustelids or Felids showed their fuzzy faces to my camera this time.

Instead, I had MANY pictures of the raccoon(s) checking the set out. Not only was there a dangling Merg', but I had also thrown some empty crab legs up there after dinner one night. There was little or no meat left on them, but I figured they'd be stinky enough to bring in some critters. The raccoons seemed quite pleased with the house specials.

 

I love how comfortable this raccoon appears! He or she is just sitting back on its haunches, snacking away on a scrap crab legs.

 

I have used multiple types of baits and lures, and by far the one that works the best is a carcass. Not only is it visual- hanging in the tree- but it is quite stinky and I'm sure it can be sensed from a bit of a distance. Surprisingly, in the past I've gotten many Crows to the set. This round, not a one showed.

 

 

I'm finally getting back into the groove of school, work, personal life, etc. This past weekend I attended the NYS Chapter of The Wildlife Society's fall field meeting. It was held at my alma mater, Finger Lakes Community College. The theme was research, and the struggles associated with it. We had a great panel of experts from varying backgrounds.

 

In a few weeks I am then attending The Wildlife Society's National Conference held in Milwaukee, WI this year. Life is busy, but I'm still blogging...slowly but surely!



A new camera trap set!

Things have been slow for me lately. Stressful too. We’re at the 6 week mark of the semester. The newness of it is gone, and we’re having exams, projects are underway, and reading is piled up nightly. That’s why I’m blogging on a Friday night! Crazy college girl here!

It’s been so cold out lately too, that I had pulled my cameras in. It’s not good for the batteries when it’s below freezing. I think they really have to work to push out the flash and capture the images, so the batteries wear down more quickly.

This is the scent lure I used:

Kishel's Weasel Lure

Today though, the temps were above freezing, and seem to be predicted to stay in the mid-high 30′s for the next few days. It’s been awhile since my cameras have stunned me with anything fantastic, so I put a little work into setting up my Cuddeback, instead of just strapping it to a tree.

This set includes 3 pieces: the camera, the bait, and the lure.

The camera is a Cuddeback Attack flash camera. I’ve set it to take an image once disturbed by heat/motion every 5 seconds. I’m not always confident that this camera performs exactly how I want it to, but that’s another story.

The bait is a netted bag full of raw chicken scraps. Last week I bought boneless chicken breasts, and while I was packing them up to freeze, I trimmed off bits of fat and a few gristly bits. Nothing like that goes to waste in THIS house, so they went into the freezer until (today) I could figure out how to use them.

Bag of chicken scraps ready to be hung from a tree branch.

And to be clear about the difference of bait vs. a lure: a bait gives the animal a reward and will encourage it to return to the spot. For example, a pile of cracked corn for deer or turkeys. Scent lure is just an enticing smell of food OR of the species you’re trying to lure in. Often anal or scent glands are harvested from traditionally trapped animals, ground up, and then used for the next round. Beaver castor can sell for more than the actual pelt, FYI.

The lure in this case is the weasel food lure that is seen above. This Kishel’s scent boasts “Not only does our Weasel Lure capture the weasel’s most intense instinct, it actually creates the illusion of a fresh kill!” I can’t really describe what it smells like, other than gross. Weasels will actively hunt for fresh meat, but will scavenge carrion too.

My target critters that I hope to see are generally: carnivores. I wouldn’t mind getting pictures of red and gray foxes, coyote, any weasels, bobcat, or even black bear.     A fisher caught on camera trap in my backyard Schoharie, NY What I’m really specifically targeting though are fishers and bobcats.   There are specific ways to set a trap (whether it be a foot-hold or camera), to lure in specific animals.   Fishers are voracious eaters. They have a very high metabolism, so they must consume frequently, or at least large, high protein meals. So in the winter, when a meal is worth more to a wild animal, a food lure will hopefully work well to bring them in. Although, apparently I’ve had NO issues getting the fisher to visit my backyard!   Bobcats, or cats in general seem to respond to movement lures. I’ve read blogs and trapping forums that suggest hanging a big turkey feather or even a CD from a tree branch to lure the ‘cat in. If you’re a cat owner, you’ve probably played with them by dangling something in front of them, and they respond well. I don’t know why it is, but cats like things like that. So this bag of chicken bits is hung about 4-5 feet off the ground from a branch extending out about 3 feet from the trunk. So hopefully nothing will have the intuition to climb up the tree, reach over, and snag the bad. As a black bear would do if you hung your camp bag up. Notice the yellowish bait bag hanging from the tree. I found this nice little nook to tuck my camera away, I think it camouflages really well!   So I dribbled a little bit of the weasel lure on the bag, dipped a stick into the bottle and stuck that in the snow, and I was on my way. I’m going to try and avoid the area as much as possible, since each time I go up the hill, I’m depositing my scent, and likely my dog’s too. This MAY deter wildlife.   Cross your fingers for me!

*NEW* camera-trapped species!

I modified the flash by taping ~2/3

over the flash with black

 electrical tape, to help tone

down the flash.

Once in awhile, after days, weeks, or sometimes MONTHS of a dry spell, I’ll get a really cool capture on my camera trap. I’ve gotten a bobcat  and flying squirrels in Schoharie, NY. A black bear , river otters, and Great Blue Herons in Canadice, NY. I captured porcupine, moose and a grizzly bear in Soldotna, Alaska. I repeatedly got a gray fox in the Outer Banks, North Carolina.

But these are some of my most glamourous captures. There have been many times I’ve checked the camera(s) and there’s been nothing.

So this afternoon, when I checked my lone, sometimes misbehaving, overexposing Cuddeback Attack…I had low expectations. A few days ago I posted my only image after about a week of the camera being in the woods, and it was a gray squirrel- a very common and easy to camera-trap critter.

When I picked the camera up today and looked at the viewer screen to see how many pictures: 35. I was skeptical …in the past, this camera has taken hundreds of pictures of nothing. Every minute, for hours. But I was still hopeful!

The first 2/3 of images were in fact pictures taken on the minute for a large chunk of an hour early one morning. I scoured those pictures looking for something that could have triggered the heat AND motion sensor in the camera. I couldn’t find anything. I was rewarded though with several characters. All common, but one is a brand new camera-trapped species for me!

I do want to mention that I baited this camera over a week ago now with the last of the dead and rancid brook trout that I had gotten from the fish hatchery at school where I work. If you scroll through my entries over the past month or so, you’ll see some of my attempts to bring in critters with the first 2 fish I put out. There were no visible pieces of fish left, but I can only imagine some really “delicious” smells which worked awesomely!

 

A gray squirrel checking things out.

 

 

Mr. Raccoon practicing the balance beam.

 

 

Looking for some remaining fish scraps...

 

 

Barred Owl!

 

I am so excited about this picture! It came out so well, considering this camera doesn’t take pictures reliably OR at the right exposure, and I've never gotten an Owl of any species on my personal camera. I’m so glad I was able to figure out how to cover the flash (with black electrical tape) to diffuse the light. I was unsure of the species at first, thinking perhaps a Short-eared Owl, but I was assured it is a Barred. Check out the All About Birds website for more information including what this owl sounds like! It’s a very distinct call, you may have heard it before. The next picture is of the tail feathers on takeoff.

 

 

 

A finally, a beautiful red fox.

This was a great round of ‘trapping, and I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks will bring. I’m leaving Schoharie soon for a few weeks to head back to the Finger Lakes for the holidays. The camera will be set out here for the duration, waiting to see who comes to visit when I’m not home.

Already anticipating some nice results!

Backyard Camera Trapping

Almost week ago, my friend Adam came over and set up his Bushnell camera in my backyard, see my Cleaning Skulls and Setting Cameras entry for the set up.

He came over yesterday to check on his camera, because he had apparently moved it up the hill, further from the house and put it near a tree stand, not belonging to anyone we knew. He was nervous, thinking that someone was going to take this camera.

Also, he found out that I had access to these:

Fresh, dead brook trout. I work in a fish hatchery (I should write an entry about that sometime...), and have access to dead fish. I asked if I could have some, and my boss shook his head and laughed, and said yes, but didn't want to know why. Well, I'll get to that shortly :)

So he came over to move his camera, and I baited my camera. He actually ended up pulling down his camera I guess, so I don't have pictures of his reset, but I have pictures of how I reset mine.

The only pictures that I have worth sharing from the past 6 days of camera trapping are both Adam's.

The first:




Photo credit: Adam Rogers

Can you tell what it is? Unfortunately infrared cameras don't yield the best pictures, BUT at the same time, they don't spook animals away either (no visible flash). So this critter is a fisher (Martes pennanti), a medium sized member of the weasel family, Mustelidae. They tend to be a bit larger than a mink, but small than the river otter (both cousins of the fisher). Below is a cool picture, and I hope it's accurate (which I think it is...). I typed into Google "river otter vs fisher vs mink" and got this link to Tumblr. I actually don't really know what Tumblr is, and I don't care to. Another time waster to take up my time already spread-thin-with-random-internet-surfing.

Anway, from left to right: weasel sp, mink, pine marten, fisher, river otter. Excuse the drawings on the fisher skull, BUT this is a cool size comparison image.

Photo credit: Tumblr

The fisher like upland wooded areas, which this site obviously is! They are a personal trophy animal for me, meaning I'm dying to get one on my camera, or to see one even in the flesh! But, I'll take Adam's picture for now. At least we know they're around.

For more info on the fisher, check out the USFWS's page: Fisher.

So fishers are attracted to STINK. Adam pulled out all the stops, smearing all the scent lures he had on every surface in this site. In the middle of the picture you can see a bit of something white, this is a cotton pad that he put some of the scent on to help hold the scent up in the air.

And the second:

Our neighbor...checking out the property line apparently.

When I discovered that my boss at the hatchery had no qualms about giving me dead brookies, I of course snatched up a few of the larger fish, and took them home.

 

This seems weird, I know. I'm sorry if it's gross. BUT these fish were already dead! And they were just going to be ground up into little bits and used as fertilizer. It's a bit culty and sadistic looking I guess, if you were to stumble across this in the woods, not knowing what was going on. Well, hopefully I have some KICK ASS photos to share as a result!

 

I have nothing to share from the past 6 days of trapping. There is apparently something wrong with the SD card. It shows up as an external source, but when I click on it to open, I get nothing. Which is a bummer! Hopefully NEXT time I'll have something good to share!

 

 

 

[mini] Small Mammal Bait Preference Study

Last week while I was participating in the Winter Ecology course mentioned here: Winter Eco Day #1, here: Winter Eco Days #2 & #3, and here as well: Winter Eco Day #4. Check those out if you haven't seen them already. There are some cool pictures of wildife and sign!

Anyway, I mentioned somewhere in there that my friend and co-student, Mady, and I were working together on a VERY small scale study for the 4-5 days we were there. The following are graphic representations of our Powerpoint slide presentation.