Baby Badgers!

There are a ton of things I should try and catch up on....  Wolves, snakes, turtles....my, oh my!

But, these just came across my computer screen today.  From my Advanced Ecology class.  I've posted about this class many times before....and as you may recall...camera trapping is a large component of the lab.  It's a spring semester lab.  I'm not one to do anything indoors, so our fieldwork is centered around what can be started in January.  Around our neck of the woods, January is cold and snowy....which limits what we can accomplish. 

Collecting data on mammals is, therefore, something we focus on.

On the last day of lab this spring....when I knew we were no longer in need of the cameras for class....I instructed my students to move their cameras over any existing burrow we could find.  Last year, we got some nice pics of a baby Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes).  This spring we got alot of nice Badger pics, and I was hoping one of the burrows would result in either Fox pups or Badger cubs.

The cameras sat out for four weeks untouched.....just too busy with the end of the semester and the beginning of the field season.

Today we finally checked and one of our eight burrow cameras was a bullseye!

The first two cameras I checked, however, were not very promising.  I mean...there were badger pictures, but they went until about May 5th, then suddenly stopped.

Here's one example...

...and another....

The latter pic is particularly awesome as it shows evidence of diet!  You can see the Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel (Ictidomys=Spermophilus tridecemlineatus) in the Badger's mouth!  I was very excited by this, as I seem to never get cool pics of natural predation.....just of feral cats nabbing things.  The best part is that the wild predation captures wouldn't end here (see below).

While both of these captures were great....they were fleeting...and they weren't of babies!  The camera location that I thought was most promising looked abandoned today.  The burrow entrance appeared un-used....and almost as if it had been abandoned for a new location nearby (which we DIDN'T have a camera on!).  I was nervous we missed the cubs.

But, today while reviewing the pictures...at about the third camera card in, I got the big surprise.  Over 2,000 pics were taken by this camera.  A good sign!

Almost immediately, there was a picture of a Badger at this location.  It was the female sitting on top of the burrow alone the night after we placed the camera.  She also sat out briefly in the morning alone...

Then, a little fluff ball appeared next to her.

Soon, I could see two....

 

 

And the next day....THREE!

These three little ones looked like they were constantly in motion.  I don't think there are two pictures where they are in the same position.

The momma looked accordingly tired.  Constantly harrassed by her playfull offspring...

Sitting up at night near the burrow entrance....

And bringing back food for the young ones (here it's an Eastern Chipmunk; Tamias striatus)...

The poor girl must have been bushed.

But every time she'd sit down to rest.....the kids were on her!

 

Literally, ON HER....

Even when she moved....

 

...it didn't take them long to find her again....

....even if she kept moving....

 

....her cubs would not give her a second to herself....

 

You can see how it would make a parent tired!

Not only do they get after their momma....but they also get after eachother.

 

Sometimes the sibling rivalries gave momma a few seconds of much-needed shut-eye....

 But they always made their way back to her....

 

It didn't really matter how far away she moved....

 

Even though it clearly grew tiresome....

 

....she showed extreme patience....

All-in-all, we got over 2,500 pics of the little family over the course of four days.  The number of pics we got was astounding....some of which were pretty darn cool!

I'm very happy my students got to experience it....

A Year-Old Tale of Romance (and how my students uncovered the continuing story....)

Happened across these pictures recently and can't believe I didn't post them before...

Last January, I happened to get pictures of two twitter-painted Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)...they were together smack-dab in the middle of the fox breeding season 'round here (which is usually January/February).

I'm willing to bet that this is the pair whom are responsible for the pup we caught pictures of on the same site several months later (see here)....

So...the ATV activity this summer really cut down on the number of fox pictures we got on the cameras for awhile.

But....much like with the Coyotes....that has changed this winter.  However, I wasn't sure if we would see any kind of breeding activity or evidence this year.  I thought that if the ATVs scared them off this summer, they might not consider it safe enough for breeding again.

Which leads us to my Advanced Ecology class this year (which is a class I've posted about during past years...see examples here and here).

Two weeks ago, the students deployed their camera traps for a semester of monitoring. 

They also spent some time assessing the habitat communities on-site and using GPS units to delineate community boundaries.

This gave them a chance to get a good feel for the property we are working on, and make some important observations.

Now, zoom forward to this week.  We gathered on-site to begin our weekly exercise, while also checking camera traps, etc.

Not long after we got started, one of the students called me over to their camera trap location to show me a burrow he had found.  In the picture below, the student is standing about where the entrance to the burrow is located.

He's pretty critter-savvy (experienced hunter and trapper).  We agreed it was in the size range for Red Fox....

There were clearly tracks heading to the entrance and it appeared to be active.  But we had snow the night before, so it was hard to tell (a) what species left the tracks and (b) how recently the burrow was used.

 

Could it be a pair of Reds is making a nice little love nest in which to rear their pups again this year?

The nearby camera trap the students put up gave us reason to be hopeful.

Here is our first glimpse of a fox leaving the den.  Not a great picture, unfortunately, but you can tell its coming out of just about parallel to where the student is in the picture above.

...and again later that evening...

 Then...just to give us something to brag about....our resident Badger (Taxidea taxus) lumbered by for a sniff.

 

 So fingers crossed that we will get a repeat of the fox pups this year!  Always fun to get pictures of them....