I bought one of those motion-sensing wildlife “game” cameras and have been trying it in different spots around my property here in the hills near Santa Cruz. Not so many lions and tigers and bears, but lots of deer and coyotes, the occasional raccoon and squirrel, but also caught a bobcat and a couple of bucks sparring in just the past month:
More local Santa Cruz wildlife:
I often see or hear coyotes near my house but yesterday I happened to catch these two come snooping up the driveway into my front yard, presumably looking for mice and rabbits… and kitties. (See that, Pan and Hera? You better be good or the coyotes will get you!!)
Coyotes in the Yard (80 seconds, 24 MB)
I should know better than to just ignore Pan when I see he’s staring out the window. The second time I walked by I stopped to look and… oh, hey! There’s another bobcat – and it’s in the front yard this time! Or maybe it’s the same one I keep seeing in the open space behind my house. Anyway, by the time I ran upstairs to get the camera, he was following the driveway out of the front yard, but not before stopping to mark his territory. It was dusk and getting dark, but I boosted the video a bit:
I went outside to say hi but he wasn’t interested in chatting. Presumably he’s looking for the rabbits I sometimes see – or maybe the field mice that escape Pan’s fenced off domain. I followed him down the driveway a bit, scaring off the deer, before he disappeared into the brush.
I had another bobcat visit/sighting this morning at my home in the hills above Santa Cruz — and once again a deer drove it off:
This little guy was not having a good day. Presumably one of my cats caught him last night. I saw his tiny dark form on the porch last night when I let Pan and Hera in, but I assumed it was the remains of another mouse for me to clean up later.
I was surprised in the morning to discover it was a little bat and that he was still alive — squirming occasionally on his back. I got some cardboard to turn him over and he shrieked a bit but still laid there. He clearly wasn’t feeling too great. Rather than let Pan and Hera mess with him, I decided to carry him into the front yard. He squealed a bit and started hissing and showing his teeth. That explains why Pan gave his little form such a wide berth coming in last night — I thought it odd at the time.
Anyway, I carried him into the front yard where the cats couldn’t get him, but of course there are plenty of birds…. And yeah, just an hour or so later I saw several large birds around where I had left him and went over to find him curled up, no longer moving and… covered in ants. Yeah, wasn’t a good day for the bat.
Look who was being given a tour of my yard this morning by his/her parents….
After taking these pictures, I went out to explain to the deer that I’d really prefer if they would do their grazing on the other side of the wall but they didn’t stick around to listen to me.
Oh, there you are you little bastard! Caught this gopher in the act of digging another hole in my front yard:
Quick, somebody call Bill Murray, I mean… Carl the Groundskeeper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR0sWU1HzTE