Sunday, March 6, 2016

Winter 2016

Although the predictions of a mild el nino influenced winter were mostly true.  Looks plenty wintry up in Isabella, where the following two photos were taken.  

Things are quiet up there;  the snowshoe hare population seems to have crashed and with it the lynx.  Most of the camera trap action this winter was limited to martens and gray jays.






Further south, there are still some snowshoe hares.  


Finally, one of those pictures that make it all worthwhile.  I waited two months for this bobcat to show up.  The snow had recently crusted over, so the predators started moving again.  To attract the cat, I hung a  little electronic device that emits a series of random chirps above the camera. Curiousity killed the cat!


It wasn't around long.


5 comments:

  1. Spectacular bobcat photo. Was the marten baited? If not, how did you decide where to put the camera? Were you specifically trying to get marten, or did it just happen by? Also, if you don't mind my asking, what state are you in? I'm curious because of your suggestion that snowshoe hares and lynx are crashing. In Maine we had no trouble finding lynx tracks this year.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Janet. The marten was more or less targeted. I put road killed venison on a "running pole", same pole the gray jay is sitting on. I added a second camera under the bait, hoping a lynx would come by, but my best marten shot came from that second camera.

      I'm in northeastern Minnesota. Lynx are interesting as they were quite rare 20 or 30 years ago whereas now there appears to be a resident breeding population. At the same time species once thought to be more southern species like the bobcat and the gray fox have expanded northward.

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  2. Really nice photos, that first bobcat photo is one of the best I've ever seen from a camera trap.

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