Animals & land
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A Ruffed Grouse peers out from the leaves
Shortly after awakening from hibernation a black bear wallows vigorously, maintaining his coat, cleansing himself of ectoparasites and leaving his olfactory mark on the landscape.
Winter is harsh in the Klamath mountains, but for Pumas it means a reprieve from the constant pressure of kleptoparasitism from Black Bears, who hibernate in the coldest months.
A baby Black-tailed Jackrabbit, or leveret, found by a participant on a tracking workshop - minutes after I ardently explained that there were no baby jackrabbits in the area because it is the wrong time of year. Shows what I know!
For reasons beyond me, this 5-month old fisher decided to check me out - up-close and personal.
The sub-adult fisher from the video, before he got too close for the long lens
A band-tailed pigeon seeks shelter from the wind and finds a ray of sunshine on a stormy spring day
A sub-adult female puma who was part of the Hoopa Puma Project, named F2
The tracks of a mating pair of jaguars cover the beach near the remains of their prey, a female green sea turtle
Male and female mountain lions communicate with one another by creating scrapes and urine markers at certain places on the landscape, and sometimes their messages find their way into unintended noses
A male northern harrier glides over a vole-filled meadow in search of his next meal
A Black Bear walks a forest road after a late fall snow
Black Bear claw marks on a red alder. Bears occasionally climb these trees in spring to eat the reproductive catkins as they are budding.
Deer congregate and squabble over the rare minerals in this surface clay-deposit, and their high numbers attract other species as well
Here is the evidence of the wallowing bear as it appeared about 2 minutes after the bear departed the wallow - the water in the wallow is still stirred up and the mud on the tree is dripping wet.
A Barred Owl stares back. Barred Owls are native to the Eastern U.S. but have recently colonized the West. Barred Owls have been implicated in the steep decline of a closely related owl species, the Spotted Owl.
A male mountain lion walks down a gully in San Luis Obispo County
One week of activity at a puma communication site, where two different males compete to leave the freshest message and other species take note of the interaction
A young Northern Pacific Rattlesnake rests in the heat in San Luis Obispo County
Jaguars (and most other big cats) are sexually dimorphic, meaning in this case that males are much larger than females and that fact is clear in the tracks. Here a male jaguar walks atop the tracks of the female he is courting in Costa Rica
The frozen track of F2
A Bobcat and a Fisher feed from a deer carcass. Carcasses, and other attractants on the landscape, bring animals together and facilitate interactions, for better or worse
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