Heard it through the grapevine...

The goal was to get some flying squirrel photos on the new (is it still new after three months?) Reconyx camera trap and I thought I knew just the place. We have an old massive gnarly black walnut in the backyard with some natural cavities and an impressive dead limb. I figured this might be where my flying squirrels live. So on April 27th at about 630pm I made a set using Squirrel Paste brand (made by On Target and sort of smells like nutty tobacco to me) as the scent lure.
Now, I need to confess right up front that I do not like heights. Even small heights. Any ladder-work is a challenge for me. I have been like this for as long as I can remember. I am not saying I don't do heights, I am saying I don't enjoy doing heights. So even this set at about 12 feet off the ground meant that I needed to negotiate the aluminum ladder each and every time I wanted to check my results.
And I checked them frequently. I checked nearly every day for two weeks. I had to. As the story unfolded, I was tempted to check TWICE a day. But I am getting ahead of myself...

Camera trap in black walnut tree

The Reconyx is ready!

It took 12 hours and 13 minutes for my first capture: a red squirrel. Not the target species but evidence that the Squirrel Paste was doing its job. Note this guy's nose buried in the lure.

Red squirrel on black walnut tree

There were a few more photos of red squirrels on the 28th, but it wasn't until that night that our target arrived! On my second trap-night I captured a visit by a flying squirrel (not sure which species). Please note its nose also buried in the Paste...

Flying squirrel photo with infrared flash

Turns out this was the only visit of a flying squirrel over the two week period. In retrospect, was this just a lucky capture? Imagine how high my hopes were when it only took two nights to get my first flying squirrel visit. Now imagine me trudging up that ladder every single day for two weeks with the increasingly sinking feeling that it was not going to return. On the one hand, I had technically accomplished my goal. But in reality, I was looking for multiple photos (and of much better quality) of multiple squirrels or displaying interesting behavior. In the end, there was no story in the night. The action was all taking place in the daytime and it took several days for me to uncover it.
My first visit to the Squirrel Paste by a gray squirrel came at 8:29am on April 29th. That is a latency to detection of about 38 hours. And again it was obvious that the Squirrel Paste was the draw.

Gray squirrel visiting Squirrel Paste (TM)

Although I went on to capture many images of gray squirrels at this set, the rest all appeared to be unrelated to the Squirrel Paste. In other words, I started catching photos of gray squirrels going about their business. Red, however, seemed to remain curious about the Squirrel Paste:

Red squirrel with nose buried in Squirrel Paste (TM)

But that isn't the story either. Just how many photos of squirrels with snouts full of "Paste" can one write about? (Apparently, four...) No, the story was a different attractant that just happened to also be in the old black walnut. Have a look at the following photo:

Red squirrel

While I was enjoying opening day of spring turkey season (always May 1 here in NY) with my Father, this red squirrel was licking sap off of this wild grape vine. The camera, centered on the Squirrel Paste, almost missed the action. Let's zoom in a bit:

I looked for more. And in very quick succession, I found these:

 

 

I wasn't entirely sure what this squirrel was doing. It could have been a marking behavior or it could have been feeding. If it was feeding, Gray didn't seem to want anything to do with it. Only a few hours later, he trampled past with one of last year's walnuts:

Gray squirrel carrying walnut

Let me sidebar here and explain a bit about what checking photos is like for me. As previously mentioned, I place the ladder against the tree, level it with a small branch and wobble my way to the top. I open the camera and swap SD cards and climb down with great relief. I enter the house, sit at the kitchen table and save all images to my laptop (while wiping the card clean). I then start to scroll through them. With the Reconyx, there can be hundreds of photos each day. I scan through them quickly to see if anything jumps out at me or if I capture anything particularly photogenic for class, Facebook or the blog. And since I had not captured any flying squirrels, I turned more and more of my attention to Red's antics over on the right side of the photos. I have the camera set to take a burst of three images when triggered and it was the following three-photo series that convinced me the red squirrels were feeding on the vine's sap. In the wee hours of the morning on May 2nd, bathed in the glow of the rising sun, this red squirrel showed he was using his tongue, not his teeth, to feed:

Photo 1: The approach

Photo 2: Licking the dripping sap

Photo 3: Not missing a single drop

This was amazing! Did the squirrel bite or "tap" the vine or was the sap running freely from a natural break? Were there other such feeding stations around the yard? Why were there no grays or flying squirrels taking advantage of the meal? Or no chipmunks for that matter? What did it taste like? And as importantly, what had I missed among the data collected from the last five days??? But first things first. It was back up the ladder for me to reposition the camera so it was aimed at the vine and not the Squirrel Paste. 

Once that task was completed, I set down to the more enjoyable job of sifting through the photos collected over the previous five trap-days to see what I may have missed. I encourage my students to think of camera trap photos as data. On this day, they felt more like clues to a mystery. I had to go all the way back to April 30th to find my first piece of the puzzle. Check out this image time stamped 1:16:56 pm

Gray squirrel

I probably only glanced at this photo for a fraction of a second the first time I went through this file. I didn't think it was a particularly compelling image of a gray squirrel then and nothing has changed in that regard. But have a look to the right of the squirrel -- the exact place where Red was so fastidiously tonging in the photos above. Do you see the droplet? Here, let's zoom in...

Grape vine sap

This is the first photo I captured that shows any visible sap from the grape vine. And the very next image actually shows it falling!

WOW! I think I was grinning from ear to ear here at the kitchen table. I mean, who would have ever noticed that drop of sap in the first place? Well, Red did. I took a photo when I re-angled the camera:

Wild grape vine dripping sap

Now I had the camera repositioned to better document the story, and just in the nick of time. Whereas on May 2nd there were only a few scattered visits to the vine throughout the day, on May 3rd it was almost a non-stop lickfest for the red squirrel(s). It takes some agility to reach the sap and I believe Red tried every trick in the book to get at it. Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

And the very best:

The visits were frequent and they often lasted several minutes. I made a stop-motion animation from the photo bursts:

But just as quickly as the visits increased, they began to ebb. 

May 4th: Few red squirrel visits in early morning. Last one at 8:40 am

May 5th: Slight flurry of red squirrel activity at vine at 6:25 am

May 6th: Only three visits. Last one at 10:30 am. No red squirrel photos the rest of the day.

I investigated myself the evening of May 6th.

Inspecting the vine

Vine covered with a white scale. I assume it is whatever was dissolved in the sap

I cannot detect any taste to the white powder

This IS my happy face...

The story was really winding down now:

May 6th: one last capture of red squirrel for the day, but no evidence it was visiting the vine

May 7th: One visit to the vine all day (at 9:50 am), but perhaps just a sniff sufficed:

 

May 7th 12:38 pm: On to other food sources.

 

 May 8 and 9: No visits to the vine. Convinced the story is over, I create new set in our "half-hedgerow" targeting raccoons. 

I never did find any other dripping vines in the yard (and we have PLENTY of grape vines), nor did I find any evidence that the red squirrel or anyone else for that matter had damaged the vine in order to make it leak. I did a little research on the vine sap and as expected, there is much written about it from a gardener or viticultural perspective. I saw several articles that referred to grape vines bleeding. I guess that is as good a term as any.

Thank you for hanging in until the end of this long post. I enjoyed telling the story almost as much as I enjoyed uncovering it. When I ask my camera trapping students to look at their photos and "tell me a story", this is what I mean. Of course, I can't tell a story like this at every set, but then again, maybe I am just not looking close enough...

The Secret Life of Walter Woodchuck

Woodchuck

Last spring, I set a Cuddeback Attack on a woodchuck hole in the backyard. This year, I put a Reconyx on the same hole. The Reconyx is relatively new to me, so I have it set to take a burst of three photos then almost immediately take another burst, etc.etc as long as an animal is there to trigger the shutter. This is both a blessing and a curse. The GOOD news is I feel as if I am missing nothing. Aside from the multiple photos, the Reconyx seems to have a wider cone of detection than the Cuddebacks. The BAD news is I have become quickly overwhelmed with data. And these thousands of images are coming at the busiest time of the semester for me.
So here is my solution: Instead of half a dozen detailed posts, how about one long one with a ton of cool things that have been happening with my woodchuck? Fair enough?

Where to begin? 

Bedding material: In my last post I also wrote about woodchucks and specifically this behavior. I still do not know if this is a female making a bed for her young or a woodchuck just gathering material for its own bed.

Woodchuck with bedding material

 Last year, I created a whole video of visitors to the woodchuck burrow which you can view here. This year saw some interesting characters as well including:

Eastern Cottontail

Blue Jay

WHOA! Look at that photo above again. I have obtained many bird photos with the Reconyx that would have been missed by the Cuddeback. Occasionally, the trigger speed can't keep up with the movement though :)

A final visitor couldn't resist rubbing on the scent mark left by the woodchuck.

Feral cat

That little tree is Walter Woodchuck's favorite marking location. Not his ONLY location, but his favorite:

Woodchuck rubbing on tree

I don't believe I have ever used the word "adorable" in a blog entry yet, but perhaps I should give it a try to describe that photo above...

Walter loves that tree so much he even climbs it:

As I mentioned, Walter leaves scent on other places:

 

 Besides scent marking, Walter likes to stretch. A stretch often leads to a yawn. Observe: 

Now for a series of three...

Well, what happens when Walter STARTS to scent mark but then gets the urge to stretch?

Scent mark? Nope! Gotta stretch..

Woodchuck grooming

Finally, Walter spends a fair amount of time grooming. Although the individual photos are fun to look at, I have taken the series of stills and strung them together for a nice stop action style video. I think its worth the watch: Woodchuck in the sun

I have moved the camera. I am concentrating on other squirrel species now. But I think I will have to revisit Walter later in the season and see what other secrets I can uncover...