Autumn has been seasonably cool and moderately wet. Mushrooms push
up through the leaf litter, and ephemeral streams re-emerge.
Bay nuts and buckeyes abound, along with acorns, although this has not
been a mast year for any of the local oak species.
Days are short, and most of our wildlife photos are at night or in twilight. All the usual mammals, especially deer, are plentiful and healthy.
The blacktail rut usually falls in mid-November. Here are two bucks
from different days, and different parts of the mountain.
Notice the dark discoloration on their foreheads. Is this rut-related,
perhaps from rubbing?
In this video, one buck seems to be avoiding a confrontation with the other.
And, on the hillside forest trail, two alert does watch one another's backs.
Two photos and a video of a bobcat in morning light approaching the camera on the hillside forest trail.
We photographed four different feral hogs this month on two different
cameras. The first big boar looks like the same beast we saw in September.
The second is a smaller boar traveling with two sows on the upper
mountain.
We were visited by a mountain lion this month on the hillside forest
camera. This is not the same individual we saw
last month, which had a tracking collar. The timestamp of this photo
was 7 p.m. on October 31. Trick or treat!
Two canids: A gray fox on the hillside forest trail, and a coyote crossing Adobe Creek in morning light.
A great horned owl grabbing something on the ground and carrying it off. Is it a frog?
A turkey vulture visits Adobe Creek. We have seen them feed here, and also bathe (!).
Finally, I don't know what caused this distorted lighting effect, but I included it for the holiday spirit.
