Camera trap catch-up

The past 2 weeks have been so totally insane out-of-control hectic, it aint even funny. Work, a death in the family, a trip to Massachusetts for a black bear field study I’m involved with, and FINALLY getting to go back to my home in Cobleskill after weeks away…one good thing to come out of all of that, is that I’ve left my camera trap alone and unbothered…

Since I haven’t shared any camera trap images lately, I think I’ll share the best of the past 2 weeks, and let the photos speak for themselves.

A woodchuck "selfie" - Latham, NY

Striped skunk

Woodchuck cleaning out the barn?

 

Eastern cottontail "selfie" - Latham, NY



Red fox - Latham, NY

American Crow "selfie"...in flight?! - Latham, NY

Red fox bringing home a meal? - Latham, NY

Gray squirrel and an American Crow - Latham, NY

 

Fisher - Cobleskill, NY

Virginia opossum - Cobleskill, NY

Two gray squirrels - Cobleskill, NY

White-tailed deer...young buck! - Cobleskill, NY

Family of 4 raccoons - Cobleskill, NY

American Crows - Cobleskill, NY

 

Eastern cottontail - Cobleskill, NY

What does a woodchuck sound like?

Have you ever wondered what noises a woodchuck can make? I know I have.

Last weekend I was dog-sitting for my landlords. They live next to me, and are the owners of my puppy's parents. So it's a nice agreement, and our dogs get to play. Sometimes I get a kick back in rent, this time though they're building me a picnic table for my yard! :)

Anyway, last Saturday I let the dogs out of their kennel outdoors, and they both immediately bee-lined for this stack of cinder blocks. At first I thought they were just being stupid dogs, snarfling around. But then I heard something.

So I locked up the two big dogs, and Addie and I investigated.

 

 

Addie was interested and scared. She did not seem like she wanted to eat it (unlike poor Jumping Mouse and Baby Rabbit from a few entries ago...) so I was interested to know...who was in there?

 

A woodchuck!

 

I have a great fondness for New York's largest squirrel. Marmota monax -is that a cool scientific name or what?!- often gets a bad rap. Many people dislike them for the damage to yards and crops that they are so good at doing. I like them because although they are a squirrel, they are a formidable beast. They are capable of doing amazing metabolic things to make it through the winter months, they are excellent diggers, and they are cute. Come on, they are!

 

 

This woodchuck was displeased with his or her situation. I believe this guy was obviously old enough to be away from his mother. He looked totally developed and capable, just small. That hole in the cinder blocks was maybe 6 inches? And he wasn't stuffed in there. I tried to poke him out with a stick, but he opened his mouth and started yelling at me.

 

So before I left him alone and to his own devices, I took this video. It looks like I was blocking him in, which I guess I was. But he was not interested in moving out of his "den". I was just outside of the cinder blocks and took this video with my smart phone.

 

 

 

He was NOT budging with me peering in at him, and the dogs whining. So I left him. The next morning he was gone, so I can only hope he wandered away and found a more appropriate hole to live in!

 

No profound biological discoveries here, just some fun pictures and videos of an under appreciated rodent!





The true New York hibernators

Yesterday I wrote the entry Who actually hibernates? in which I started talking about special winter adaptations that wild animals must possess 1 or more of, to survive our cold winter months. I love learning about winter adaptations, because it amazes me how wild animals have no “creature comforts” like we do, and yet they survive and prevail.

Muller Field Station, 1/14/2012

 I took a course last winter in January 2012 called Unique Winter Ecological Adaptations, or Winter Ecology for short. It was a week-long residential class held and Finger Lakes Community College’s Muller Field Station, on the South end of Honeoye Lake (in the Finger Lakes). Clinton Krager, associate professor of biology, was the instructor, and he did a great job that week. I had such a great time with it, I was obviously inspired enough to write about it almost a year later. To read about the class, check out my entries from January 2012: Winter Ecology!

So I said that I would reveal the TRUE HIBERNATORS, and I will.

To briefly refresh, the loose definition of hibernation that I use is: A significant drop in body temperature over a long period of time. This is important, because other animals do similar things (torpor, dormancy), but their temperature MUST significantly drop, and for an extended amount of time.

So the three groups are:

1) Woodchucks! (Marmota monax)

2) Jumping mice: Meadow jumping mice (Zapus hudsonius) and Woodland jumping mice (Napaeozapus insignis)

 

 

3) Cave bats: Northern bat (Myotis septentrionalis), Little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), Eastern pipistrelle bat (Perimyotis subflavus) (*there IS a difference between cave bats and tree bats. I encourage you to look this up if you’re interested: Bats of New York)

I know that’s technically more than 3, but we can group and say that woodchucks (there’s only one species in NY), jumping mice, and some bats hiberbate. TRULY hibernate.

When animals head into their dens or hibernacula for the winter, and leave the outside world for the next X number of months, they enter this state where they are completely unable to be roused from their coma-like state. When I’ve talked about this before, I’ve said that if you dig down into a woodchuck hole, and was able to reach it- you could literally pick it up by it’s tail, swing it over your head, then tuck it back in and it would be none the wiser. It takes hours for the animal’s body temperature to raise to a normal level. Their temp drops so that their metabolism slows way down, and they aren’t burning through all their fat stores that they’ve been putting on in the previous months.

Everyone, including myself at first, is so surprised to learn that bears do not hibernate! It’s true, they don’t! They enter this state called “torpor”. Like hibernation, their temps drop, they hole up somewhere cozy and safe, and they are inactive. But, their temperature drops just enough to conserve energy. Bears can get up and run if they’re spooked out of their den (I’ve witnessed this, first hand in the month of January). They even give birth while they’re in there! If weather is permitting, they may peek out, sniff the air, forage for a snack, and then return to the den. I would say that while “in the den” they’re generally very groggy, sedate, and lethargic…but they are able to move if they need.

Woodchucks, jumping mice, and the listed bats are down and out for the count until something internal, or perhaps external (length of day? but wait…they’re in holes underground and in dark caves) tells them it’s time to come out. It’s not temperature, because if there was a freak hot day in December, which is becoming more and more likely as the global climate changes, that lasts for one day- the woodchucks, mice, and bats aren’t all going to snap out of it and be out and about. How they actually begin the process of coming out of it is widely studied, and I don’t think any conclusive statements have been made. But please, if someone knows different…please share!

Camera Trap Pics: East Hill Campus

Several weeks ago I wrote a blog entitled: What Shat That Scat? (pretty hilarious IMHO!)...and I've not yet had the chance to show the results of the 9 Cuddeback cameras we hung out!

Briefly, we had a group of Wildlife Society student members, and our trusty professor and wildlife buddy: John Van Niel to lead the field trip to our college's newly acquired field station, the East Hill Campus. The cameras were running for 2 weeks.

It's a gorgeous campus, and we're lucky to have the generosity of the man who donated the property! I don't have much to say this time, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves :)

Camera #1

A new species for me! Can you tell what it is?

A Ruffed Grouse doing his thang! Perhaps there was a lady Grouse on the other side of the snow fence...?

Raccoon

White-tailed deer. We poured a little "Toxi-Dog" scent down that pipe there to lure someone in, and as usual, it was the WTD!

Camera #2

Red fox

A curious WTD

That's a nice patch of fur off her shoulder, I wonder what happened?

And Nicki, the homeowners pet dog!

Camera #3

WTD

Red fox

Cooper! The neighbor's pooch.... a common occurrence on cameras I've put out over the past couple of years here!

Camera #4

Gray squirrel

WTD butt...

Camera #5

Raccoon

What could this be?! When we first found this site, we set a camera because we found several coils of weasel scat. Some people thought that this was a mink, but it's too thick and not the right habitat, although there is some water here. Just past the critter, there's a small pool of water that usually hangs around all year, but this year might just be vernal...

Well, there's the next best pic we got of our friend...

Red fox

And there, finally a great picture of a majestic animal: Marmota monax....or the woodchuck!

Camera #6

Gray squirrel

Gray squirrel

Camera #8

Haha, the only picture this camera took was of me standing in front of it while it was being hung :) That tree there has a flying squirrel box mounted on it about 10 feet above my head, which has been inhabited by flying squirrels in the recent past. We were hoping for one of them crawling down at night....but nope!

Camera #9

Can you pick out the WTD rear?

WTD

And finally...a WTD ear perhaps?

Those are the pics! We got some great variety, and some personal firsts on camera for me (Grouse and woodchuck). John (Backyard Beasts) was going to write about our results as well, but he let me take the pics and write. He's super swamped with grading and teaching (and I should be swamped with writing and learning...), so, here they are!

Happy Groundhog Day!

In honor of today's 'holiday' I'll share a photo of a little lady I snapped last spring!

To read my entry: The Wiley Woodchucks!

The Wiley Woodchucks!

The woodchucks I got to view were the courtyard area of off-campus student housing at FLCC. They were in a small mowed yard that was edged on one side by some tall weeds and saplings, with a few trees thrown in as well. Their den was in the more woody area, with two openings that I could see.

Description of the sighting: My friend Becca and I were just returning to her room one afternoon, and as we pulled in we noticed a commotion in the yard. As we got out of the car we could hear the crackling and snapping of twigs and brush. Intrigued, I approached and discovered it was not one woodchuck but two. They seemed to be in an amorous game of tag. I’m not sure if they were a male and a female, but I only assume that they were. One was definitely more clearly the chasER and one was definitely the chasEE. As I walked towards the grassy area, the male, or the chaser took off down a hole (which I have shown in my pictures), but the other one, the one I’m dubbing the female stayed put out in the open. She was breathing heavily, and I could tell was tuckered out. She let me get within probably 10 feet, which allowed me the cool picture I was able to snap. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to a live woodchuck!

As I learned in class, the woodchuck is the largest squirrel in New York, which was at first a surprise to me. I think of squirrels as having life among the trees and a big bushy tail. This encounter with the woodchuck showed me neither. Because I experienced this sighting before officially learning about the woodchuck in class, I was able to digest this sighting in my head and think about what I saw, and then made connections with information learned in class. According to my Stokes book, the woodchuck was originally a “forest dweller”, hence his name. Because human beings have cleared so much land and made beautiful, rolling, green hills that are perfect for woodchucks to munch on grass, they now spend a lot of time in meadows, cleared fields, or yards. This is exactly the type of location I had my sighting.

Woodchucks are also terrific diggers. The holes I was able to observe (and maybe there were more), were large enough for the woodchuck, and expertly cleared. I could see a few feet into it and it appeared dry and free from debris. I also observed a “plunge hole”.  The one I dubbed the male disappeared into this hole. This hole was perfectly camouflaged, and if I hadn’t seen him disappear into it, I would have never there was a hole in that spot. The hole I snapped a picture of is what I’m going to assume the one I dubbed the male disappeared into this hole. This hole was perfectly camouflaged, and if I hadn’t seen him disappear into it, I would have never there was a hole in that spot. The hole I snapped a picture of is what I’m going to assume was the hole that all the innards of the den came out of. There was soil strewn about, and vegetation was clipped back. It was an obvious hole in the ground, where as the other one was not.

For future study: Do these woodchucks live together? In the Stokes book, it states that these animals are typically solitary and aggressively territorial. Was I witnessing someone over stepping their boundary? I would have thought yes, had I written this a day earlier. But the other day (4/19/11) I observed these woodchucks munching in the yard where they were first spotted blissfully and content. They were within feet of each other. Stokes goes on to state that recent research has suggested that the woodchuck may live in “loose association” with each other. How loose is loose?