Aptos Mountain Lion Characters

April 21, 2011 by pumapix

As many of you have noticed I am completely and utterly fascinated by mountain lions, pumas, cougars, catamounts, or what ever you like to call them (did the webpage url and logo give that away???). It has always been my fascination getting pictures of them and seeing them in the wild. Though i have been able to get images, I have never seen one in nature (how is that possible you ask — camera traps!).

As anyone with any obsession, I can’t get enough information about them. Absolutely everything interests me about them including home range size, territoriality, density, prey species, den sites, when cubs leave their mother’s home range, and the list just keeps going on. I am telling you this as a forewarning for future posts under the Project Puma heading that will have anything and everything to do with mountain lions whether that is information or pictures just in case there is someone else as interested in this beautiful cat as I am.

This post is also supposed to serve as an introduction to the cat(s) of the area I camera trap in Aptos near Santa Cruz in the Monterey Bay area. As of right now there are two camera traps out there and I have gotten mountain lion pictures on three different occasions. I am not completely sure whether it is the same cat or different cats so I figured I’d ask you guys. Here are the three pictures followed by close-ups in the same order.

Taken on June 8th, 2010 at 4:35am

Taken December 25, 2010 at 9:31pm

Taken March 5th, 2011 at 6:32am

Is it all the same cat, I really don’t know. In other cat species researchers use the spotting pattern which is unique to each cat to identify them. For Puma concolor (the scientific name of the mountain lion meaning cat of one color) this isn’t really an option. What I was looking at is the black marking around the mouth, the black whisker markings, and the shape of the ears. Nothing leads me to say that its the same cat or different cats (in the second image, that is a tick in the ear, sadly not something to identify the cat by) — do you see something I am not? One thing for sure is that the second cat is much bulkier than the first, but the images were also captured months apart.

An interesting thing to note are the few faint slightly darker spots on the back leg of the first image, which could give us some clues of its age. Puma kittens are completely spotted loosing these marks as they become older. By ten months, the markings are difficult to see except on the hindquarters. The eyes turn from a light blue as kittens to yellow brown as adults (this change is complete by sixteen months). Young pumas are independent around 15 months (with a range of 10 to 18 months) leaving their mother’s territory and searching for their own. Based on the fact that I had not captured an image of a puma before this individual (for a period of 8 months) and its morphology it leads me to believe that this must be a juvenile looking for its own territory. If the second and third image are of the same cat, then I am glad to know its doing well in its new home!

Featured as ‘Wildlife Photographer Spotlight’ on Camera Trapping Campus

April 20, 2011 by pumapix

Camera Trapping Campus Screenshot

I am humbled by being featured on Camera Trapping Campus as their first wildlife photographer for their new feature ‘Wildlife Photographer Spotlight’. I met Jake, who writes the blog along with Christian, a few weeks ago to join him as he put out one of his homebrew camera traps. He is an awesome guy and I love reading their camera trapping stories. Please join me in following their blog, you will most definitely be entertained!

I also look forward to more outings with the Trapping Campus gang as it guarantees a fun time in the outdoors!

Is it possible to combine adventuring with photography?

April 20, 2011 by pumapix

Simply put, yes!

Most of us outdoorsy people like to get in a little bit of adrenaline here or there. This is easy for wildlife photography since the adrenaline starts kicking in every time you get close to a wild animal, but when adventuring is the first reason for the trip, is it still possible to combine it with photography?

I am no expert on hardcore adventuring but I definitely enjoy strenuous trips hiking, biking, kayaking, and what ever else my friends or I can think of. Since these trips are generally always focused on an outside location I always get the urge to bring the camera just in case an animal shows up or a landscape screams to be photographed. To make these trips a success it is extremely important to make conscious decisions about what gear you bring. If you have too much you get slowed down and start seriously worrying about your gear getting damaged, if you have too little you may not get a shot. (let’s just say I struggle with this a lot). To help you make better decisions check out Jeff Bartlett’s Blog, who writes extensively on the subject of adventure photography (I will need to follow his advice more) and packing for a trip.

Just to give you some examples of small adventures that have provided for excellent photographic opportunities.

Kayaking in Elkhorn Slough – Equipment Brought: Canon 30D, 100-400mm Lens

I somehow always make funny faces when doing self portraits…

Taken from kayak, still better picture than anything I have taken from land

Riding Bycicle Across the US with Best Friends – Equipment Brought: Canon 5D, 24-70mm, 100-400mm, 580Ex Flash, Graduated Neutral Density Filters

Bicycle Route Across the US

All the camera gear is in the back in one pannier

Lily Pads on Lake in Pennsylvania

Great Horn Owl Roadkill, this was one of the most ‘intact’ dead animals we saw

Coniferous Forest Panning Shot

Reeds reflected in water, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Grand Tetons at Sunrise, Grand Tetons National Park, Wyoming

So the lesson I have learned is to not choose but to smartly combine photography with outdoor adventures!

*If you are interested in purchasing any of the pictures displayed in this post, please check out my fine prints page for pricing.*

Why Saving All Endangered Species Matters

April 18, 2011 by pumapix

This is a some-what of a follow up to the previous blog post about politician Joe Baca introducing a bill that would certainly bring the Delhi Sands Flower-loving Fly to extinction. I wanted to stress how important it is to save not only species that we can easily fall in love with like the endangered Sea Otter, or Giant Panda but also species that we might not even recognize what it exactly is.

The reason for this is quite simple, all species are connected ecologically, removing one species from the system will have some kind of impact on the rest of it. This can lead to devastating effects, even for us humans. A prime example of this (and I am very much simplifying it here) is the connection between the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, Black-legged Ticks (Ixodes scapularis), Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis), and us humans. Black-legged Ticks can carry the above mention bacteria which is the agent of Lyme disease. If a tick buries itself into a human it has the potential of passing on the bacteria and disease leading to potentially debilitating effects for the person later in life. Enter the all important Western Fence Lizard, it has been shown that when nymphal Black-legged Ticks feed on Western Fence Lizards the disease carrying bacteria is destroyed by a protein in the lizard’s blood — aka the tick no longer has the potential of spreading the disease to us humans. The fact that the lizard is only found on the west coast might be the exact reason that only 2-4 percent of adult Black-legged Ticks carry the disease here compared to up to 50% in the north east of the US. Here is a map for a quick view.

Western Fence Lizard and California Poppies

Now we are lucky that the Western Fence Lizard is not endangered, but what if it was, we would start caring a lot more about it. My guess is there are a lot of these kinds of examples out there in the natural world, many of which we don’t even know about yet, many of which involve endangered species. So yes, let’s save the Blue Whale and Polar Bear but let’s give equal attention to less charismatic endangered wildlife.

*If you are interested in purchasing any of the pictures displayed in this post, please check out my fine prints page for pricing.*

Utilizing your Local Botanical Garden or Arboretum

April 13, 2011 by pumapix

Botanical Gardens and Arboretums are amazing places to not only visit but also to photograph. It is always fascinating to me to see plants from all around the world in such a small area. How amazing is it to wander from South Africa to Australia in just a few yards. From Proteas to Pincushions. It doesn’t even matter at what time of year you go, something will be in bloom.

Living in Santa Cruz provides the amazing opportunity of visiting the UCSC Arboretum, a deeply under-appreciated place. It contains the largest concentration of southern hemisphere plants in the northern hemisphere. When I photograph in these floral collections I tend to shoot in a macro-style, concentrating on single plants, often on single flowers. This is mainly to eliminate distracting backgrounds and since the plants are not in their native habitat showing the landscape in the background is not beneficial most times.

Here are a few examples of the types of pictures I am talking about:

Pincushion (Leucospermum sp), UCSC Arboretum, Santa Cruz, California

Still unknown plant to me...., UCSC Arboretum, Santa Cruz, California

Buttonbush (Berzelia lanuginosa), UCSC Arboretum, Santa Cruz, California

Spiral Aloe (Aloe polyphylla), UCSC Arboretum, Santa Cruz, California

Then you always have the option of getting more abstract pictures. This is the advantage of plants over animals, they don’t move too far. The picture below was taken at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. I loved how the light was coming through the fern fronds. I first took images that were in focus but I really liked the shape of the leaves so I decided to manually put them out of focus, having nothing in the image be sharp. It’s different, but I like it.

Fern fronds out of focus, Berkeley Botanical Garden, Berkeley, California

Finally, all the plants attract wildlife as well, so keep an eye out for movement. Hummingbirds are frequent visitors to gardens so they are attracted to these ‘super gardens’ in even higher numbers. This male Allen’s Hummingbird was photographed in Santa Cruz. He would continuously land on this perch and then chase off any other males intruding into his space. Every time he was off chasing a rival I crept closer, stopping when he would arrive back at his perch. I wanted to still include some of the amazingly colorful background created by all the plants so I stopped when I was about 10 feet away. It is one of my earliest photographs, but I still love it.