Our Local Gray Foxes

Gray Foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) seem to be very common animals here in the Cuyamaca Mountains.

Dense chaparral is attractive to Gray Foxes, and we have quite a bit of this habitat, especially after the regrowth following the Cedar Fire. The high number of downed trees, boulders and dense cover must provide good denning sites for foxes in this area.

The San Diego Mammal Atlas (Tremor et al. 2017) suggests that these foxes are likely monogamous, although it is not known if they remain so over consecutive years.

The trail cam photos that we got last summer regularly showed TWO foxes visiting the water sources that I have out on the property! Perhaps a mated pair?

This image clearly shows the black stripe down the tails of the foxes, a character distinguishing the Gray Fox from the kit fox.

In this image, there's some interaction at the bird bath! The date is incorrect - this was also in the summer of 2018 (I did not reset the clock after changing the camera batteries).

Another image with a pair visiting for water. September is a very dry time here, especially as we had almost no monsoonal rain this past summer.

One day last summer the bird bath that the foxes like to climb up on had a mark in it! Foxes often mark their territories by placing scat on high points like boulders, or even small rocks on the ground. To a fox, the bird bath probably seems like a boulder with a large depression in it.

In late July we had an odd sighting of a fox snoozing on a rock about 100 feet from the house. It was a hot day, and apparently this fox was unconcerned about the activities around the house that day. The jays gave it away with their usual raucous mobbing behavior, triggered by almost any predator in the area. The fox clearly just wanted to sleep in a shady spot, but eventually moved off in to the landscape.

Crop of the photo above.

The fox on the ground before exiting the scene. Another good shot of the black stripe on the dorsal surface of the tail.

A fox or foxes also regularly visited the ground-level bird bath on the patio over the summer.

Approaching...

Leaving, in the late afternoon, after the bath was dry...

There are a fair number of natural springs in the area, but wildlife still will come to these sources placed out by local residents - a good incentive for us to keep up the practice.

A Year of California Scrub Jays

What formerly was known as the Western Scrub Jay has since been split into two species, the California Scrub Jay and Woodhouse's Scrub Jay. The California Scrub Jay resides here in the western portion of the former range of the Western Scrub Jay, so it is the jay I see on my property here in the Cuyamaca Mountains. It has a darker, richer blue color than the interior western Woodhouse's Jay.

I've been photographing the jays from the blind I set up periodically. Their patterns seem fairly consistent throughout the year, with the appearance of juveniles in the summertime.

Here are some photographs with comments of various jays seen between February, 2018 and January 2019.

One of the first images from the blind, facing east on a cloudy day.

Portrait, April 2018

A juvenile, August 2018. Mostly gray where blue will appear later in the adult plumage. Some pink at the corner of the mouth indicates its youthfulness also. This one looks a little disheveled overall, too! 

Portrait of a youngster, August 2018

I kept seeing what looked like a jay with a skull for a head in the trail cam images from the property! Eventually this bird appeared when I was in the blind and I could get detailed images of it. The scabbiness suggests disease rather than a simultaneous head-feather-molt, which jays sometimes experience.

A grainy crop from the trail cam, August 2018. This bird hung around the area for a couple weeks and then seemed to disappear. It was typically on its own when a group of jays was present.

Portrait, late August 2018

I wonder if this bird is older? It's bill seems more rounded than the bird in the previous portrait, and than most of the birds photographed. Wear and tear with age? August 2018.

The blunt-billed bird, ready for take-off, with nictitating membrane deployed. August 2018.

Young bird, September 2018

November 2018

November 2018

January 1st, 2019, after the New Year's Eve snow (only about an inch). 

New Year's Day, 2019 (note the drop of water on the bill from the damp post-snow conditions).

On one of the small re-sprouted oaks, late January 2019.

One of my favorite shots to date, on what will hopefully become a "hummingbird perch". Late January 2019.