The continued "tail" of the squirrel...

Last week I posted a camera trap image (seen at left) of a stray cat with a strange looking red squirrel in it’s mouth. Red squirrels are mostly…well, red. Of course there are variations, and they’re not ALL truly red. But this was really something, the body appeared (in this picture) to be either naked of fur, or covered in a very light coat of white fur. Strange color variations can occur in all mammals like leucism (lack of pigment in localized areas), melanism (excess of pigment), and albinism (complete lack of pigment: all white/blonde fur, pink skin and eyes). If it was anything, I guessed this squirrel was leucistic through it’s trunk/abdomen area. Other theories were that this was a baby squirrel, it was albino, it had an ectoparasite like mange, it was shaved, and/or fur loss. Having only this grainy, unfocused camera trap picture to go by, we could only guess.

Then, yesterday morning I opened the back door to let the dog out, and there was ANOTHER “white” red squirrel in my backyard, this time alive, and happily feeding on bird seed. I quickly got my camera and started taking pictures.

A side by side of the front and the back of Squirrel #2.

As you can see, he or she appears very healthy and is gorging on black oil sunflower seeds. You can also probably see that this squirrel IS covered in fur, but just a fine downy layer. It was suggested, and I agree, that this squirrel appears to just be missing the guard hairs, but the downy undercoat is still there. If you have a dog or a cat, part their fur and you’ll likely see a color difference in the coat. Longer hairs also are longer and coarser than the fine down.

So, are these squirrels just shedding or molting? It’s the strangest thing.

I stuck my camera trap back out to try and get some footage of them. Here are a few of the images.

 

Then, this morning I sit down at my kitchen table, at which I have a great view of the backyard, and there are TWO of these strange-looking squirrels now! So a total of the strangest looking red squirrels I’ve ever seen, end up in my back yard!

Two “white” red squirrels in my yard, Schoharie, NY

The bar you see in the above picture is part of an old porch swing frame that I use to hang my feeders from.
I’ll leave you with this video of Squirrel #2 yesterday afternoon. Feel free to comment with ideas. I’ve sent pics in to the DEC and am awaiting a response!

 

Lately lackadaisical

I've certainly been lackadaisical lately, and I'm sorry (especially to myself) for not keeping up with this blog. I'm 10 days from graduation, still unemployed, and trying to figure out my life...I've been very busy.

Throughout the semester, of course I've been camera trapping. I've kept the cams close, because I can't spend time wandering the woods looking for good "sets". This picture was taken within 25 yards of my backdoor. My landlord last summer was doing some drainage digging back there, which left some trenches. I found this board, and laid it across a trench. This is the most interesting picture I've gotten so far.

Please tell me what you think is going on, I have my own thoughts that I'll share later.

PS: It appears as though I've lost ALL my pictures on my blog. I don't know how or why, and I'm pretty upset about it. Any thoughts as to why?

Stale chunks o' bread

This winter has sucked in the Northeast for camera trapping, in my opinion. It's been frigid, which really takes a toll on the batteries, and we've been dumped on with snow! Feet and feet of snow! So, if I actually had had cameras out during December-January-and the beginning of February, they may have gotten covered over, or it would be inconvenient to check on them. And, the animals don't move around as much!

An Eastern cottontail...blinded by the flash!

Well in recent weeks, I've stuck my two cameras (a Bushnell Trophy Cam and a Cuddeback Attack) in the woods right behind my house. I've had all the wild canids that call NY home, bobcat, fisher, cottontails, squirrels, an owl, a hawk, other littler birds too. And it's easy to get to.

The Cuddeback Attack's flash is so bright, it just can not take pictures in the snow, unless I cover up the flash somehow, so I don't have any pictures that are worth sharing. You can see in the picture at left how washed out it is. It is taking pictures though, so that's a plus! (it doesn't always take pictures...)

But, my trusty Bushnell pulled through with some nice pictures. I threw out some crusty, stale bread...which the woodland creatures seemed to enjoy.

By the way, the date and time is not correct. Rookie mistake: changed the batteries and didn't reset the clock!

One of the first Eastern chipmunks I've seen this season! Chippies do not hang out above the snow, and are one of NY's true hibernators. BUT, with slightly milder temps, longer days... they somehow know that it's time to wake up!

Two Eastern cottontails enjoy some bread too!

Blue Jays

And finally, a spindly-tailed red squirrel. I wonder if someone took a grab at him!

 It's odd to me that I haven't seen any of the usual scavengers around lately, either by picture or by tracks in this snow. Raccoons, opossum, striped skunks, and even porcupine love a free meal.

Finally, here's one last picture I will share from the Cuddeback. It's REALLY too bad the snow was so bright, but did I catch the first mating pair of Ruffed Grouse for the season?

Winter camera-trapping

This is the camera I’m currently 

using: A Bushnell Trophy Cam HD.

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I LOVE using camera traps, or game/trail cameras. I love sticking them out in the woods and seeing who comes when I’m not looking. This set of pictures doesn’t contain anything too exciting, all common critters, but I got some multi-species pictures. I love it when that happens, I feel like I’ve totally breached the code of wildlife and am a secret agent spy. “HA! I KNEW you all hung out like in Disney movies!” Well, in this case, several members from different species hung out together, because I sprinkled a handful of black oil sunflower seeds on my favorite camera-trapping log.

Enjoy!

(BTW, I had around 1,500 pictures from 3 days. Once the seed was discovered, critters descended and burned up all my battery by December 20th! The camera was set until January 5th, but due to lots of action and/or frigid temps, the camera died.)

The normally EXTREMELY territorial red squirrel is shown here sharing the log with another red. They are known for caching food in an accessible hiding spot, and then defending it. If you’ve walked in a conifer stand, and heard someone “yelling” at you from the trees, it was probably a red. I’m assuming because it’s winter, these 2 were able to put aside their differences and munch amicably on the seed within feet of each other.

400 pictures “later” than the duo of squirrels, I caught many pics of these 4 American Crows together. Crows are often seen in groups, but what interests me now, is that they appear to be eating the seed! Crows are opportunists, so they WILL eat anything, but are not typically seen at a bird feeder eating bird seed. Well, I suppose in the winter I’d eat bird seed too, if I had to.

A handsome Blue Jay makes a brief appearance!

Here are two species eating in harmony! The red squirrel and a Mourning Dove.

Another multi-species picture. I see the American Goldfinches and Dark-eyed Juncos.

Here’s Red, looking guilty? Did he just chase off the birds?

 

 

And the last picture I found to be of interest, has 3 different species in it! Can you find them all? From the bottom of the picture up: Dark-eyed Junco, red squirrel, and a Black-capped Chickadee.

5 different critters on camera

I yet again couldn’t wait to check my new camera trap (Bushnell Trophy Cam HD)!

As a previously wrote about, this camera is proving to be a major step up from the other brand that I own. It seems to reliably take pictures! Which is always a nice feature to have in a camera.
The first 2 times I checked it, the camera was set on the video setting. I got a few nice clips of a raccoon scoping out the area, which you can view here.

Can you see the camera in the picture at above? It’s mounted on the second tree from the left.

I just went out and grabbed to SD card out of the camera again, and was rewarded with 4 species of animals. All of them are common, but their presence allowed my new camera to do some work. I’m pleased with the quality spread out over 250 images. This time I had the camera set to take still images, 3 at a time. With a trigger speed of 0.594 second trigger speed, the images pile up quickly.

2 Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) fighting perhaps? If I had to describe their actions in one word, it would be sparring. What do you think?

Remember Blackie? He/she is a feral cat (Felis catus), and back at this location.

Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

The ‘possum looks so washed out because he’s close to the camera. I was struggling with a definition or explanation of how infrared cameras work. I knew how, but was unable to articulate it, so after a quick internet search, I came across the site: Teachers Guide to Infrared, which had a section titled “How do infrared cameras work?”….perfect!

How do infrared cameras work? 

Thermal infrared imagers are detector and lens combinations that give a visual representation of infrared energy emitted by objects. Thermal infrared images let you see heat and how it is distributed. A thermal infrared camera detects infrared energy and converts it into an electronic signal, which is then processed to produce a thermal image and perform temperature calculations. Thermal imaging cameras have lenses, just like visible light cameras. But in this case the lens focuses waves from infrared energy onto an infrared sensor array. Thousands of sensors on the array convert the infrared energy into electrical signals, which are then converted into an image.
So I think when a WARM item, like this live opossum is too close to the camera, there’s too much “bounce back”, similar to a regular flash. There is a setting where I can turn on all 36 LEDs (high), 24 LEDs (medium), or 12 LEDs (low) based on the distance I’m trying to reach with the camera’s scope. I have the camera set on medium right now, which seems ok for most of the pictures. The opossum has a lighter pelage too, which doesn’t help.

Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)

And Blackie's back!

A red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)! I love these little guys, very fiesty and cute!

My pet cat, Sassy.

And finally, Addie. Bad puppy!

I’m quite pleased with how this camera is performing. It’s a nice change from what I’ve been using!

Squirrels!

Northern and Southern flying squirrel

ranges in the the United States.

Range map credit:

www.flyingsquirrels.com

I couldn’t come up with a more creative title for all of the cool pictures I’m about to share. Over the course of the past couple weeks, I was able to capture 3, possibly 4, different species of squirrels on my Cuddeback Attack flash camera trap!

I believe there are a total of 6 species of arboreal (tree-dwelling) squirrels in New York: gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), Northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus), Southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans), and the Eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus).

I can say say with certainty that I have gotten the gray and red squirrel. The 3rd and possibly 4th species are of flying squirrel. In New York State, we have both the Northern and Southern. The maps at left show how the two species overlap into NY. Both species extend into Canada, but the Northern moreso.

Also, I should add that there aren’t any Eastern chipmunks showing up anymore this year because I believe they’re all tucked into their dens hibernating!

I modified the flash by taping

~2/3 over the flash with black electrical tape.

I recently wrote about and shared the preliminary results of messing with a nontraditional mounting of the camera, check that out here: A different perspective…. This was the trial period of playing with the flash (it’s way too bright for close range critters), and how to mount the camera (on it’s back looking up the trunk of the tree).

I got some interesting color variations of the two more well known squirrels…a black squirrel (actually a gray!) and an orange (actually a red!) squirrel. Sometimes people have a hard time understanding how this works. A squirrel that is black, should be called a black squirrel, right? Well you can call it that, but it’s genetics tell us it is the same species as the gray…just a different variation of color. I’m a blonde, you might be a brunette, a red-head, or gray. Those are all just variations of the color. Unfortunately, when people were first discovering plants and animals, they named them as they saw them. Gray squirrel, red fox, bluebird, white-tailed deer. All of these animals can and will show up from time to time a different color.

Anyway, here they are!

A black, gray squirrel.

A very orange, red squirrel.

Red squirrel again...

And most likely the same black squirrel again...

 

 

These top 4 pictures are taken from atop a cinder block at the base of the tree. That large branch at the right of the picture is where the camera was mounted for the rest of the pictures. That branch is ~8-9 feet off the ground.

Flying squirrel! Species unknown.

Flying squirrel again, species still unknown.

Flying squirrels are next to impossible to identify to the species level "in the field", as they say. Perhaps those who study flyers know a way to do so. The only way I know, besides examining their DNA, requires you to be handling the squirrel. You blow gently into their belly fur (both species have a buff colored underside), but when the hairs are parted, the Northern reveals a dark gray base to the fur. But, that's a difficult way to ID a wild animal.

A true gray squirrel.

 

The only complaint I have about these images is that because the lens is pointing directly skyward, as the squirrels ascend and descend the trunk, bits of bark come loose and drop onto the camera. The lens is recessed into the casing of the camera a little bit, so these pieces and condensation can collect here. You can see in the last picture a dark spot in the upper left hand corner. A small price to pay for some neat photos! Now that I have the flash issue figured out, I'll be messing with this angle MUCH more and trying to lure the flying squirrels in for a closer look.

 

Camera Trap Collection

While I was in Alaska, I just got back to the East Coast about 12 hours ago, I had my Cuddeback Attack Flash set up for most of the time. If you've been following along, you've probably read my complaints that I think this camera is a lemon. It just doesn't work like I believe it should, and how I've come to expect Cuddeback products to perform.

Nonetheless, I was able to get some great shots...and the following are my favorites. Some might be repeats from earlier posts, but I wanted to share them all in one place!

Snowshoe hares

Grizzly bear

Red-backed vole species (unknown)

Porcupine

Snowshoe hare

Moose

Red squirrel

Coyote...talk about timing!!!

And can you believe she was out at that time of day?

Winter Wildlife Tracking with Nick and Valerie Wisniewski

Another fantastic wildlife adventure: complete!

Through the club I am President of, The Wildlife Society Student Chapter at FLCC, I was able to arrange a tracking weekend workshop, and hire 2 lovely people from Walnut Hill Tracking and Nature Center (Orange, MA). I met the Wisniewski's last summer when I traveled to them with my Black Bear Management class that I was enrolled in last summer. We were studying this interesting type of marking behavior that black bears do, and these people are some of the only experts that I've been able to find.

For more info on this bear behavior: Back to bloggin'...for now.
Anyway, I loved learning from them last summer, so I decided to see if they could come visit us at our Muller Field Station for the weekend. I invited club members and other conservation department students, and some staff members for the experience.

Friday afternoon, Sasha (our advisor and my friend) met Nick and Val at the field station to give them the tour and get them settled in. We left them to explore for the night, and returned the next morning. We had a GREAT group of people that all came together for the weekend, and who were all very enthusiastic. I was thankful for this because I didn't want people showing up for a free 'weekend away' and to not take it seriously! This was far from the case. Students involved were: Myself, Kelly, Kasey, Leslie, Judi, Petra, Deanna, Sean, Marshall, Tyler, Dakota - - and staff members: Sasha (advisor, conservation technician), and Nadia (Muller K12 outreach coordinator).

We learned about track patterns, stride, straddle, track shapes, pads, negative space, other things to look for like nails/fur on the track, gait names, and how to measure all of those wonderful things! Nick and Val were teaching to us on a basic level, because although we had differing degrees of knowledge/experience about wildlife, we were still ALL basic trackers. It's a huge, wide field of knowledge and takes a long time to learn!

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of all the species tracks we identified, but I will list them off:

• Red fox
• Canadian Goose
• Short-tailed weasel
• Long-tailed weasel
• Vole sp.
• Mice sp.
• Red squirrel
• Gray squirrel
• Possibly flying squirrel sp.
• Mink
• White-tailed deer
• Raccoon

Other types of sign ID'd:

• Deer bed
• Deer rub
• Red fox scenting
• Bird nests
• Vole tunnels
• Mink slide
• Coyote scat
• Deer scat
• Deer browse
• Chewed walnuts
• Squirrel bites
• Woodpecker holes
• Woodchuck hole
• Dreys
• Otter latrine site

Live sightings:

• Canadian Geese
• Mallards
• Red squirrel
• Gray squirrel
• Blue Jay
• Downy/Hairy Woodpecker

Our field station, was beautiful this weekend. On Friday night, it started snowing. Here in the NE and in NY, we've had little snow this season. But, it started likely flurrying as we were getting Nick and Val settled in. By Saturday morning it was a beautiful, snowy landscape.

Photo credit: Leslie Crane

Myself, taking in WINTER!

The following are pictures taken over the weekend, I'll try to ID everything. It's difficult now a day or two later, and I don't have items for scale in hardly any of the pictures or labels. We were really moving on the fly! And I didn't want to get in anyone else's way. I will try to include at least one fun fact I learned about each species mentioned.

Meet and greet outside the house!

Photo credit: Sasha Mackenzie

First find of the day! Deer scat.

Frosty little jelly beans. Deer scat morphs with the season or even daily with what the deer are feeding on. Currently, in the winter, deer are browsing on tough, woody vegetation. Their scats are hard, compact little pellets, as you can see in this picture.

Next find: short-tail weasel tracks. Weasels are bounders!

As you can see, there are only 2 holes in the snow. That's because the back feet land where the front feet were previously.

Checking out some mink tracks! You can't see them in this picture, but they are running right along the line of ice and snow, on the snow.

Photo credit: Sasha Mackenzie

Bounding along!

Activity around a plunge hole. Mink are semi-aquatic Mustelids, and they are well insulated against the cold air temps AND water temps.

Travel between docks. You can see one in the picture, and I'm standing on the other.

Behind me, on the other side of the dock, was a bank covered in long grasses and weeds, all bent over from the snow. This makes the PERFECT cover for small critters. In this picture is a hole in the snow that the mink created. Perhaps going after prey? Or just to go somewhere else...?

Beaver chewed speckled alder.

Nick using calipers on some Canid scat. Unable to identify it, but narrowed it down between red fox and coyote. Both have scat diameter ranges that overlap eachother, so it's hard to tell. But definetely a wild dog left this scat behind. What's interesting about this, is that those stalks of milkweed you see, I left out back in January as a marker for a live trap I had set out during my Winter Ecology course. About a week and a half-2 weeks after, I went back to the spot while on a walk, and found this scat on top. It's common for dogs, especially wild ones, to scent, urinate, scat on top of something (a hummock, downed limb, plants sticking up, trash). Does it help lift the scent? Is a visual marker? What are they trying to tell me? Get out? Or here I am?

Nick!

Canadian Goose tracks

Learning to measure straddle, or trail width.

Learning to measure stride, or length between tracks.

Valerie sniffing out some red fox urine. If you haven't smelled it before, and you live in red fox country- go outside. They're in mating mode right now, and the musk was almost thick on the air. We could smell it everywhere we went, and in my opinion, it's not an altogether unpleasant smell!

Everyone belly-down and sniffing for the scent spot on the red fox trail!

Dakota getting a sniff!

Leslie taking a turn...and...

Photo credit: Leslie Crane

Myself!

Here we found a squirrel midden in a rotted out black walnut.

Squirrels, particularly reds I think, are very territorial. They will create caches and middens at the center or core of their territory. As a part of that territorial behavior, they will often bite along a tree or branch. This is a visual marker as well as a chemical (they have scent glands in their mouths) marker that warns off other squirrels. The redder or fresher looking wood in this picture is the bite area.

A midden of walnut husks.

My beautiful roommate, Kasey, and I! Bundled up against the snow :)

Tons of little mice tracks. Not sure of species: Peromyscus or Mus.

Photo credit: Sasha Mackenzie

Judi, our resident Brit, loving the snow!



And the last track picture I'll include are parallel track patterns of a white-tailed deer. I believe these are WTD because of the width of the trails. The deer on the left was dragging, most likely HIS, hooves. And the other, was picking them up out of the snow. If you look to the top of the picture, you can see the deer on the right begins to drag as well.

Photo credit: Sasha Mackenzie