Pregnant Parasitic Peromyscus in my Pocket
Trying to get a quick update in here since it's a busy office day (got everything urgent done, just working on the photos now).
My computer is still not fixed even though we have the new parts. We think it may be an incompatibility with the power supply and the new motherboard but we haven't had a chance to check yet since both xilin and I have been busy and when we do have time poth is using her computer. (We think she has the right kind of power supply so we want to check that first and make sure that's the problem before ordering another one, especially my current one is also only 18-months-old.)
No news on the King City shooting which in this case is bad news since it means that so far the shooters have gotten off scot-free. Paula reports she took a few council members to task at the meeting I missed because Tuesday =/= Thursday.
Meanwhile last week Soledad apparently made national news with a horrific bus crash. Apparently the national news does not (or at least didn't at the time) know where Soledad is. Hint: It's very much NOT North of Salinas.
It seems our first responders did a phenomenal job, though, and while I could complain about the terribad traffic that went with the whole thing (I have never seen so many cars on River Road and Fort Romie Lane) that seems petty compared to the reason for the traffic.
If you had asked me the day of the accident if I saw the bus I would have said no since dad called to warn me and I took an alternate route home.
I did see it in person, though. Leaving town at 4:15am Wednesday morning to do some bird netting I was startled to see that the bus was still there, mangled on its side with whole lengths of the bridge guard-rail gone. They had the whole place lit up like day at dark o'clock in the morning. Apparently they were finally able to clear everything and re-open the bridge before noon that day.
As terrible as it was, 5 dead and over 30 injured some critically, apparently it could have been much worse and there were emergency vehicles on the scene within 2 minutes. There were reports that as soon as it happened farm workers ran to the scene from the fields and gave away blankets, sweaters, and the shirts off their backs to help keep the victims warm.
After the fail of the King City police department, its nice to see authorities get something right, especially when the first ones there were the Soledad fire department.
And now for something completely different, the title of this post:
We've been busy since Andy asked us to step up our trapping so we did some netting last Wednesday and again this weekend with an over night trip at one of the sites. (Another over nighter is coming this Wednesday.)
Saturday we set up our nets but didn't open them. Instead we pushed the closed net to the top of the poles so they wouldn't clothes-line any deer or Sasquatch. We also put out our 60 Sherman traps, even though it's a half-moon. Driving back we took a bunch of pictures of all the cool critters we encountered: several newts, a huge millipede, and a couple toads.
In the morning we opened our nets and picked up our traps. We had 6 captures out of 60. Pretty terrible compared to our other site with 40-some-odd out of 60 but better than zero. Birds came in slowly for a total of 8 for the day. And it's definitely spring. We're pretty sure we caught a couple of mated pairs of birds along with what we think might be immature juncos. Also, all the female mice we had were pregnant or lactating in the case of the wood rat.
One of these mice, a California mouse Peromyscus californicus also known as a parasitic mouse for their habit of parasitising woodrat dens to make their own nests, was VERY pregnant. She also wasn't very generous with "sample" so we put her in a paper bag and set her aside for a while as is our protocol. When we checked on her she seemed cold and was huddled up in a corner for warmth.
Since we weren't quite ready to let her go yet but we both needed our hands so we couldn't hold her to keep her warm we ended up putting her in the breast pocket on my uniform. She was a very polite tenant, didn't squiggle or bite or pee on me at all, though I think I felt the baby mice shifting around when I put my hand up whenever it was free to add some warmth. I'm sure it helped that the pocket was about the perfect size and has a little flap that buttons so once she was in it was warm, dark, and secure. When it was time to release her she didn't want to leave and grabbed at the fabric with her claws making her extraction a little tricky since I didn't want to pull too hard on her tail. Once I finally got her out and on the ground she seemed to perk up and definitely looked like she knew where she was going (beeline to the nearby woodrat mound) which is always something we like to see.
I don't think I would've done it with any other species that we get. Woodrats are way too huge for one and the pocket mice (which sound like they should go in pockets but no, they have pockets) are sneaky and lull you into a false sense of security before making a break for it. The piñon and manny mice are adept at escape and both the boylii and harvest mice are super bitey.
The California mice are pretty docile for wild animals though, especially rodents. They always look bewildered and sleepy when we shake them out of the traps, their escape attempts seem half-hearted, and when we go to scruff them it's always seems like they've resigned themselves to it as opposed to the others who all buck and twist and try to bite.
About the only other species we've encountered that seems sleepy and docile like this was the K-rat, which probably wouldn't have fit in my pocket.
My computer is still not fixed even though we have the new parts. We think it may be an incompatibility with the power supply and the new motherboard but we haven't had a chance to check yet since both xilin and I have been busy and when we do have time poth is using her computer. (We think she has the right kind of power supply so we want to check that first and make sure that's the problem before ordering another one, especially my current one is also only 18-months-old.)
No news on the King City shooting which in this case is bad news since it means that so far the shooters have gotten off scot-free. Paula reports she took a few council members to task at the meeting I missed because Tuesday =/= Thursday.
Meanwhile last week Soledad apparently made national news with a horrific bus crash. Apparently the national news does not (or at least didn't at the time) know where Soledad is. Hint: It's very much NOT North of Salinas.
It seems our first responders did a phenomenal job, though, and while I could complain about the terribad traffic that went with the whole thing (I have never seen so many cars on River Road and Fort Romie Lane) that seems petty compared to the reason for the traffic.
If you had asked me the day of the accident if I saw the bus I would have said no since dad called to warn me and I took an alternate route home.
I did see it in person, though. Leaving town at 4:15am Wednesday morning to do some bird netting I was startled to see that the bus was still there, mangled on its side with whole lengths of the bridge guard-rail gone. They had the whole place lit up like day at dark o'clock in the morning. Apparently they were finally able to clear everything and re-open the bridge before noon that day.
As terrible as it was, 5 dead and over 30 injured some critically, apparently it could have been much worse and there were emergency vehicles on the scene within 2 minutes. There were reports that as soon as it happened farm workers ran to the scene from the fields and gave away blankets, sweaters, and the shirts off their backs to help keep the victims warm.
After the fail of the King City police department, its nice to see authorities get something right, especially when the first ones there were the Soledad fire department.
And now for something completely different, the title of this post:
We've been busy since Andy asked us to step up our trapping so we did some netting last Wednesday and again this weekend with an over night trip at one of the sites. (Another over nighter is coming this Wednesday.)
Saturday we set up our nets but didn't open them. Instead we pushed the closed net to the top of the poles so they wouldn't clothes-line any deer or Sasquatch. We also put out our 60 Sherman traps, even though it's a half-moon. Driving back we took a bunch of pictures of all the cool critters we encountered: several newts, a huge millipede, and a couple toads.
In the morning we opened our nets and picked up our traps. We had 6 captures out of 60. Pretty terrible compared to our other site with 40-some-odd out of 60 but better than zero. Birds came in slowly for a total of 8 for the day. And it's definitely spring. We're pretty sure we caught a couple of mated pairs of birds along with what we think might be immature juncos. Also, all the female mice we had were pregnant or lactating in the case of the wood rat.
One of these mice, a California mouse Peromyscus californicus also known as a parasitic mouse for their habit of parasitising woodrat dens to make their own nests, was VERY pregnant. She also wasn't very generous with "sample" so we put her in a paper bag and set her aside for a while as is our protocol. When we checked on her she seemed cold and was huddled up in a corner for warmth.
Since we weren't quite ready to let her go yet but we both needed our hands so we couldn't hold her to keep her warm we ended up putting her in the breast pocket on my uniform. She was a very polite tenant, didn't squiggle or bite or pee on me at all, though I think I felt the baby mice shifting around when I put my hand up whenever it was free to add some warmth. I'm sure it helped that the pocket was about the perfect size and has a little flap that buttons so once she was in it was warm, dark, and secure. When it was time to release her she didn't want to leave and grabbed at the fabric with her claws making her extraction a little tricky since I didn't want to pull too hard on her tail. Once I finally got her out and on the ground she seemed to perk up and definitely looked like she knew where she was going (beeline to the nearby woodrat mound) which is always something we like to see.
I don't think I would've done it with any other species that we get. Woodrats are way too huge for one and the pocket mice (which sound like they should go in pockets but no, they have pockets) are sneaky and lull you into a false sense of security before making a break for it. The piñon and manny mice are adept at escape and both the boylii and harvest mice are super bitey.
The California mice are pretty docile for wild animals though, especially rodents. They always look bewildered and sleepy when we shake them out of the traps, their escape attempts seem half-hearted, and when we go to scruff them it's always seems like they've resigned themselves to it as opposed to the others who all buck and twist and try to bite.
About the only other species we've encountered that seems sleepy and docile like this was the K-rat, which probably wouldn't have fit in my pocket.