UC Davis math prof Abby Thompson usually contributes photos of the California intertidal, but today she sends us five mammal videos from her house. Abby’s captions are indented.
In a brief departure from tidepools, I bring the results of our recent trailcam experiment. A few posts ago I mentioned that something had excavated a major tunnel system under our front yard in Northern California, with multiple large entrances. We installed a trailcam to try to discover what it was and spent about six weeks collecting endless short videos of grasses waving in the wind, plus various deer body parts. We decided that probably the tunnels had been abandoned and were losing hope. But in the last few weeks (the grass got mowed, and the settings got adjusted), things picked up on the trailcam.
On 6/17 we captured a striped skunk, Mephitis mephitis, which, though charming, was our least-favorite choice for tunnel builder :
Next on 6/20 a raccoon, Procyon lotor, turned up:
and then on 6/21 a black-tailed jackrabbit, Lepus californicus:
Really exciting, on 6/25 a bobcat, Lynx rufus strolled by:
And you’d have thought that was more than we could’ve hoped for, but on 6/28, we saw this:
Taxidea taxus, the American badger! Although I still feel like I’ve never seen a wild badger in person, this was pretty close. I don’t know if the badger really was responsible for the tunnels, but I’m happy he visited.
The camera: Fargarloo solar powered Trail Camera.
That’s a truly amazing yard you have!
Wow, what a variety of wildlife. I live in a rural area of Northern California and also have several mysterious burrows on my property. Now you have inspired me to get a trail camera to see just what critters share my little ranch.
Amazing pictures, but I would register an objection to calling a hare or jackrabbit a bunny. Genus Lepus, not very bunny.
Wow. A badger! I only saw one in the wild once. My wife and I were driving along one of our E-W interstates—probably I-70 in the desert—and there was a badger rummaging along the side of the road. Quite a sight.
We need to get a game camera. We had one when we lived on Orcas Island. All we saw were deer. Sometimes they were curious about the camera, so we got great photos of what it looks like up a deer’s nose.
Loved the badger video. It’s probably my imagination, but they have an air of menace about them.
If this was the eastern half of the country, we’d immediately finger groundhogs as the responsible parties, but I was surprised to see that CA is outside their range. I had assumed they were everywhere.
You’ll have to update us if you ever identify the animal that created the tunnels.
Fantastic!!! My bet is on the badger as the tunnel digger.
I’m with you! It’s really a major earthwork.
Thanks for these great photos and also for info on your trail camera!