caiawatha's Favorites

Previous game camera trigger of a goshawk 30 minutes before, bookended by marten triggers. Then some drama! A goshawk appears from the left, lands briefly, and then lifts off again to meet a second goshawk in a brief tussle in the air. The birds are within view of the camera over the course of 35 seconds, with one eventually flying off with the other remaining on the ground, slightly off-camera to the lower right. Exciting observation! @caiwatha

Observed on small frost mounds (palsas) which are drier than the surrounding tundra, but which have large cracks through which pure water ice can be seen. This is 98 miles/158 km road miles north of the Arctic Circle.

To me, this looks like two individuals. The first lynx that shows up at this specific time ~2310, are the last pics in this observation. To me it looks like a smaller individual than the cat in later pics at 2322.

Smaller-looking lynx appearing about two hours after the first lynx individual https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/200462781

Opening its mouth "yawning" around the stick rubbed down with a castor sac, and then jumping up and rubbing its body on the stick.

Please see the first observation in this series for context: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/197200592

This is the first visit since Sept. 23. Clearly, there isn't much left to feed on, if anything.

WARNING! Photos show a partially-eaten animal and may be disturbing for some people.
This moose was killed by a wolf. A local dog musher came up on it with his dog team and saw a lone wolf feeding on the moose's head. He described the encounter when he saw me and I went there with my camera and trail-cam. The moose was a young cow, probably almost a year old, and was extremely thin. I examined the tracks where the wolf chased the moose out of the woods onto a trail, then up the trail a short distance. The moose was lying in the trail. The wolf had eaten the tongue and a portion of the haunch. There were probably 50+ ravens nearby and I surmise that they got the eye and maybe the cheek. The first photo in the series shows a puncture wound above the hock. I put the trail cam on a nearby tree and left it overnight but no wildlife showed up besides ravens. This trail is only a mile or two from a rural residential area and is used by dog mushers, fat-bikers, skiers, and snowmachiners. Photo of the wolf tracks is in a separate observation (link is in comments).

My husband and I were hiking in the Alaska Range in September 2021 when we came across the remains of a hunter’s moose kill. There was little left except the gut pile, head, hide, and lower legs. On a subsequent trip through the area a few days later we put the trail camera up and left it for almost a month. This is the first in a series of observations. All will be linked back to this one in an effort to present a more holistic impression of the activities of scavengers over time.

Most of the observations are of a small family of wolves but there were also ravens, black-billed magpies, a lynx, coyote, and even a moose that wandered through. I’ve examined the photos numerous times and there are 3 wolves for sure but possibly 4. One is a big white adult and two are subadults, one black and one with white markings on its face (I call it White Cheeks), and possibly a 4th one with a dark back that I never got a clear photo of.

Most of the photos are at night and fog and snow sometimes obscured the view. The moose kill is a dark brown mass in the center foreground visible in this first observation. The trail cam was set to take 4 shots at once, then wait 10 minutes. The wolves came and went repeatedly over many nights. Sometimes they appeared together or within a few minutes of each other and sometimes not. I separated the observations by date but unfortunately that doesn’t show how connected they really were.

As of Jan. 25, 2024 there are 12 additional observations connected to this one.

!!!

On the last day of a Big Year, but with me unaware at the time, one final life species appears. And it's a big one! Many thanks to @caiawatha for helping make this one happen. A really special observation to me.

I believe the wolverine appears at 01:58am, but then kindly reappears for better pics midday 13:15-13:30.

The camera also caught a wolverine on January 3 and January 17.

Refreshed by @caiawatha on 11/10. I didn't position the camera very well, and I also think the camera maybe was not functioning 100%. Whatever the reason, the first and only day with camera trap pictures with a visible animal was 11/16, when a mixed flock of Alaskan avian scavengers (bald eagles, ravens, magpies) descended and made a bit of a fuss.

Camera trap with scent lure and rabbit fur.

On second night, marten appeared at 20:07 (first photo) and triggered camera multiple times throughout night until 05:00hr the following day. Some comical videos of marten swinging suspended on the hare.

Red fox series over the course of hour and a half.

01:38am first capture of the night. Single fox in center of frame, eight days after a fox was first caught on video at this location. Fox is clearly seen focusing on an area where scent lure was buried in the snow, and digging.

02:08am fox walking around, nose to snow.

02:16am fox looking directly into camera, sniffing the air. Another video is triggered within the same minute, this time with the fox starting to dig at a second location, closer to camera. Fox looking up at camera in between dig attempts. A third video is captured within the minute, this time the fox trotting away. The hole is not deep enough to have found the scent lure.

02:56am fox is captured mid-dig, substantially deeper than before. Hole is deep enough now that when fox puts its head down, its glowing eyes from the infrared lighting disappear into the snow.

03:07am fox is walking, enters into now a well trodden path in snow between digging locations.

Next (and last) fox capture at this location is two days later at 8am with a fox trotting quickly through.