After a warm, dry March, welcome rains and cooler weather returned in
April.
This month we feature the coyote, a creature highly celebrated in the belief systems of the Coast Miwok and many other native peoples.
We regularly see coyotes on the Lafferty cameras, but this spring they
look particularly healthy and plentiful.
Here are two photos, each from a different camera, and a video of two
"arboreal" coyotes.
(The large bay laurel trunk they are traversing is a live tree growing
somewhat horizontally -- not unusual for that species.)
We also saw the return of a few feral hogs. Here is still photo and a video of a sow with two piglets on the upper mountain.
We saw plenty of smaller animals this month (opossums, skunks, squirrels,
woodrats, raccoons, and one badger),
but their images were dark or otherwise unphotogenic.
Here is a hawk (juvenile redtail, possibly) just emerging from a bath in a
pool of Adobe Creek.
Deer are plentiful. We saw many individuals and many small same-sex
groups. A doe in the first photo appears pregnant.
The buck in the second closeup shows the growth nubs that will become this
year's antlers. The video shows a couple of young bucks.
Like coyotes, bobcats are regularly seen, but now seem especially
plentiful.
Here is a nighttime photo of a pregnant female, I believe, followed by a
video.
No mountain lions have been observed since December, which might account
for the prevalence of bobcats and coyotes.
As noted last month, the City of Petaluma is experimenting with
controlled grazing on part of the Lafferty Ranch property.
A herd of cattle from a neighboring property were allowed to graze a
couple of days in late March, to be repeated in late April.
A temporary electric fence restricts them to the upper meadows. We
will revisit this topic as we evaluate impacts on the land and wildlife.
