Wild (speedy) wildlife photo fling

Just in case you don't follow me on Twitter or Instagram,

I wanted to be sure you see the lovely creatures

that have been gracing our property, of late.  =)

The grand coyote (Canis latrans) arrived after big splashes of rain.

Was cruising around, hunting gophers,

spending a lot of time looking about (hence, Wily Coyote).

(Note coat is wet fm. all that rain)

The classic LEAP & JAM down into gopher tunnels. =)

We also saw bobcat (Lynx rufus).

That fence is at the northern (and very wild) edge of our property.

Source of many great things for a biologist. =)

Sleepy bobcat in manzanita shade at the edge of our driveway.

Very exciting for me, but I only allowed myself 3 photos, 

then left that window so it could relax w/o the paparazzi. =)

And, here's an animal both the above species love to eat,

and of which we have plenty, the humble gopher (Thomomys spp.).

Attracts SO many exciting carnivores for me to ogle. =)

 Wily Coyote Tale

I'd recently noticed the fencing of our hen's porch

seemed a little more pulled away from the framing than it had been.

As if a creature was helping that process along...

So, investigating it to asses when & how to fix it,

I saw FOUR long hairs right at one of the pulled-away corners.

Pretty sure hair that long is from a coyote.

Funny, when I'm about (& awake) the coyote studiously avoids the hen house.

Looks like when the humans are snoozing,

coyotes return & look into opening that tantalizing snack shack.

Since then I've shored it up & will do more of that work today.

Mechanical exclusion is my #1 method for dealing with pests,

whether they're gophers or deer (gardening) or coyotes & bobcats (chickens).

That way, if I'm smart, there's no need to kill anything.

These giant brains can be very useful, if we employ them. =)

xoxobb

Swarm!

While, yes, it is WARM, so I might say " 'swarm!",

what I mean is there is a SWARM of BEES

in a small Ponderosa pine,

outside my garage,

RIGHT NOW!

All those tiny dots are NOT dirt specks.
They are bees!

Crap lighting, but you get the gist.

Same bees, hours later:

Freaky day.

Earlier chased a bobcat (who'd attacked our hens) away,

so now our hens are, sadly, confined to coop,

for their own good.

For now.

And, so far, the bees have issued no demands,

so all is well.

For now...

=)

xoxobb

p.s. Next morning:

Woo-hoo! =)

wildlife commute, t-peas & backyard bloomers

Morning commuters

Evening traffic

In the above, the bobcat was eyeing my 2 white hens.
Needless to say, I changed its mind re: what to eat.

Next time I saw it (about 1 hr later), it had other prey in mind. Yay!

Kitty (-like).

Not kitty-like. Giant eye-spots!

And off he goes!

Gorgeous. Can you imagine looking THAT GOOD naked?!? Wow.


T-pea

Gently plunked handfuls of been-soaking-3-days
sugar snap peas into the garden, yesterday.

This crop is nerve-wracking.

Everybody & their uncle LOVES to eat baby peas.

So, I covered the peas w/dirt, dried pine needles, dusty weeds,  

rusty chicken wire, and brainwaves of protection.

Hoping maybe 2 dozen baby pea plants survive to clamber skyward.

ALSO hoping that, like the last time I made a legume t-pea,

said cone-o'-plant will host a bird nest!


Backyard wildflowers

 Baby blue-eyes (Nemophila menziesii) are a favorite native wildflower of mine.
Jepson eFlora says that "Nemo·phila" derives from Greek for "woodland-loving."
How sweet.

 I love the tiny stamen (= white filaments + dark anthers*) shadows.

The above bugs ADORE these flowers.

Now go back up to the 1st flower shot.
See? Take your eye back a few inches & that bug is WAY hard to see.
Petals save lives.**

Okay. I owed you an update.
Busy this time of year.
Going out today and tomorrow and maybe tomorrow and def. next weekend.
As in outside.

Hope to see you out there!!
Please feel free to share any outings you've had or will have;
I think it all inspires people to get out more.

xoxobb

*omg, a botanical mystery novel title: Dark Anthers. You heard it here, first! It's MINE.
** a botanically or bicycle-y themed safety message. Pedals or petals save lives. Also mine. =)

nice buns! gorgeous bobcat strolls past

I am such a nerd, I tweeted this photo

to Jillian Michaels and her podcast producer, Janice Ungaro,

BOBCAT! In da SNOW. TODAY!

OMG.

I am SO glad I skipped "Game Night" (w/ pardons to my lovely friends).

Look who visited my kitties and I!!

Max is back!

I timed this guy (or, er, gal?),

and in SIXTEEN MINUTES

it detected (through SNOW, mind you),

caught,

killed,

and ate

THREE rodents.

UNbelievable efficiency.

This next sequence is 27 SECONDS long:

Twenty-seven seconds.

And that's a fatty rodent in his fearsome maw.

Then he came back and hunted more,

but it was too dark for photos,

and I wanted to leave it alone,

so it'd head to my ground squirrels.

No luck there.

Just now, writing this,

talking w/ Bear about the opossum he saw here Wednesday night,

scratching at our back door (how very odd),

a skunk walks past our back door.

RIGHT by the door (snow-free zone).

"Doo-delee-doo-delee-dum."

Word must be out that we have no dogs.

I LOVE LIVING HERE!

And am so glad Max seems to find it rewarding, too.

=)

xobb

great post by curbstone: bobcat v. chicken drama

 
Check out this story. Includes amazing photographs of a stunning bobcat, and nice shots of hens, as well. I could SO relate to dropping everything and running outside barefoot to chase off a predator that was lusting after my hens.

bb

Predator on the prowl, plagued by paparazzi...

  
Haven't seen this guy/lady (oh, yeah, Max was the name) in weeks ("Watching the watcher" in Feb). Here are FUZZY pictures of this very-much-not-a-kitty cat. Pics taken late yesterday afternoon. As in 6:30 p.m. late.

"Oh, no. Paparazzi -- feh!" (as ALways, click to enlarge =) )

"Alright, I'm outta here." (turning around on a log can be a trifle awkward...)

"But first, a good stretch, just to show I'm leaving of my own accord."

Do bobcats whistle merry tunes? If so, how do you spell that?

So, not 30 minutes later, light is getting very dim (so completely fuzzy pic, shutter was open an hour), Max re-appears, MUCH closer to the coop (structure on right).

Time to don my Ogre hat and stomp out there, shovel in hand. Sorry, Max. He's swiped at the hens through the coop cage before, and I just don't  think they need that stress.

So, off Max trotted into the forest behind our property, stopping occasionally to stare back at me to see if I was a) still following, b) indeed, following him, which I answered by staring straight at him.

Yes, you.

So conflicted. As photographer, REALLY want Max to be relaxed and happy here and to get used to me and my camera. Could get amazing photographs.

As chicken guard, not so much. Hmph.

But, as I've observed before, I probably only GET to see Max because he's attracted by the chickens. 

And who can blame him. He wouldn't be the first to be seduced by the charm of a chicken. =) Join the club, Max.

xo biobabbler

man--the shots I miss to keep my chickens alive... (plus spring flowers)

                
I just chased off our local bobcat, who was SIX FEET outside my window, IN THE SUN. Holy cow. Whatta photo-op.

I hesitated 2 beats, DYING to pick up my camera vs. scare it off, but it was aiming at our Rhode Island red, Fanny, who was foraging innocently in our garden, another 20 yards (i.e. a few bobcat-bounds) away.

So,  I got up and knocked on the window. It turned 180 degrees and ran away. Here are the best shots I got, OB-viously not as good as I could have, but I'm quite sure the only reason I get to see this animal so regularly is that we have tasty, charming chickens luring it from the periphery.

 (per usual, click to enlarge)

(good reminder to get rid of that blue tarp...)

It also set me to wondering if we are now seeing the bobcat more than we had because the fox is gone. I learned years ago (from Kevin Crooks, http://warnercnr.colostate.edu/~kcrooks/, while he was becoming a Dr.) that in southern California, foxes and coyotes don't seem to share territories. Also, just looked it up on Wikipedia (I know, not a thorough literature search), and the ONE study they cite re: this issue indicates that bobcats are not competitively excluded by red foxes or coyotes. In Maine. Which means, for here, who knows? =)

So, on to other matters, like my documenting Spring in the Sticks via photos, and the promised red maids, and other participants...

Charming Calandrinia ciliata, a.k.a. red maids, making my flagstone step welcome and attractive.

Closer shot of actual flower and happy grass.

Also saw this, which is, I believe, red-stemmed filaree, Erodium cicutarium, a non-native little flower who's seed can stab through just about any footwear. A-MA-zing. AND, the dried, detached seed moves with changes in humidity to corkscrew into the soil. Incredible adaptation.

Next up is this charmer, which I did NOT expect. However, thanks to you and what I'm learning from this spring bloom log, I may learn to expect it this early next year.

Baby blue-eyes, Nemophila menziesii, is native. Be sure and click on the photo to see it's charming companion--v. cool bug with great eyes. Also, to see this flower's interesting anthers--I'd never noticed that before.

Not far from here is a place that gets nearly solid fields of the stuff, so when (and if) it's really going this year, I'll try and get some pics for you.

xoxo the biobabbler

P.S. Am right now surrounded by yellow-rumped warblers and western bluebirds, swooping and hopping all over our grasses.

what am I chasing?

I just ran after something (predator) and it occurred to me mid-stride that I didn't know what it was. Bobcat? Grey fox? Hmm.

It's an interesting feeling, this realization washing over the back of your brain, while you are chasing an unknown, wild creature into the woods, shovel in hand... =)

And who says the sticks are dull?

welcome to my whirled

The flavors of biobabbler: a fervent love of nature, photography, cooking pretty and yummy food, travel, bio-adventures, with some gardening and possible fitness stuff jammed in. I am a huge fan of "life" and have a ringside seat and NikonD50. It's a pretty sweet gig.

I live on 5 acres in the Sierras and am spoiled re: wildlife, etc., I get to see everyday. I love to write, edit, and photograph, and wanna learnta bea websitebuilder, so, THIS is the result/experiment.

Above is Bob, my spokesbuck. He was resting 30 feet from our house yesterday, looking exceedingly studly (when mouth not open chewing food bolus), his glory only marred by my lame fencing which is a necc. evil to protect hacked lilacs from, you guessed it, Bob and his ilk (typo was "elk"). =)

Much of the time I am, while doing other things at home office, on predator patrol. Witness immature red-tailed hawk from last month...white wires of top of garden where "the girls"(3 hens) were. Yikes!

The constants: any and all mid- to large-sized predators want my chickens, I don't want them to GET my chickens, and my chicken protection devises are imperfect. Hence the need for vigilance.

The variables: my vigilance, what is on my feet when I run after attempted assailant (huge sorels, flip flops, socks, nothing), what my feet/shoes encounter (snow, mud, pinecones, poison oak, 50,000 stick-tights), my arsenal (rake, shovel, board, nothing), and my foe (raptor, bobcat, coyote, dog). Oh, and my verbal assault upon foe...

If a bear is determined, I will basically just have to plan for new chickens next year. Bears are their own trump card. The coop is pretty-much-everything-proof except for bear. Our HOUSE is not bear-proof. And I have to sleep some time...

ANYhow, so as not to be too long-winded, if you return, I can promise you travel, wildlife viewing, food photos, and general goofiness. Would love to hear any comments or questions.

Until next time, here's our local bobcat (Max) beckoning for you to follow along with us and our year in the sticks...