Cool Nature Los Angeles!

[furtech]

...well, Chatsworth and Valencia, but close enough.

On a couple of recent hikes I have seen creatures (or creature-spoor) that I had not realized lived in this area or have only seen once before.

First up: Ring-tail cat track
martes and I were walking in one of the dry washes in Valencia when she spotted an odd track: her guess was a ring-tail cat and subsequent Googling seems to prove her right. I have never seen one of these creatures, but they are -very- elusive and nocturnal.



Next up, on the same hike: horned toad!
I have seen one of these before, but not one that was so lightly colored-- almost an ivory hue. He patiently let me take several pictures and then proceeded to burrow into the sand.



Last up: Long-tailed weasel!
I did not even consider that we had native weasels in this area. Escaped ferrets, maybe, but not a weasel! On the way to visit a friend in Chatsworth for a (hot) hike, I drove past what I initially thought was a dead ground squirrel. But something in my mind threw a flag out: the color was wrong. On an impulse I went back and checked more closely. I was glad I did: that wasn't a ground squirrel-- it was a small weasel! A bit of research tells me it was a long-tailed weasel, which apparently -can- be found in this area. I've certainly never seen them in the wild.

Not long after, on my way home, nature's garbageman was hard at work: a turkey vulture was making a meal of the unfortunate weasel.

Weasel pics under links: while the first isn't that graphic (small image), it -is- deceased.

weasel-deceased, small-image

Larger pics of weasel, somewhat more graphic

All in all an interesting week of wildlife!

Comments

[shoka.livejournal.com]

Cool about all of the wildlife. Bummer the weasel was dead. I didn't realize we had them in the area until we accidently live trapped one in our yard (we were after ground squirrels). We've had several sitings over the years and hope they hang out and eat our gophers.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

That is -very- cool! I would -love- to have a population of weasels taking care of all the ground squirrels and rabbits on the hillside. At the moment, though, I have to settle for re-locating gopher snakes I find on hikes.

[shoka.livejournal.com]

You are too optimistic! We have the weasels around, coyotes+pups who've denned between our yard & the neighbors for years, plus gopher snakes, hawks, a thriving crow colony and the owl on occasion. But we we still have heaps of gophers, rabbits and ground squirrels. Think they just breed too quickly.