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Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, October 16, 2017. A killer kitty brought home what appears to be a megamouse. Before disposing of the rodent, the owner took a few photos.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, October 16, 2017. It (same rodent as first photo) looks like a tree rat, also called a roof rat. However, it lacks the white belly and chest. Norway rats have small ears lower on their head. Verdict: tree rat, A.K.A. roof rat. 
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor August 19, 2017. You'll often see tree rats as trained rats on TV because they are cuter than Norway Rats. This one was an earlier tree rat kill. The owner quickly distracts the cat(s) with cat treats so the kill can be quickly disposed of, rather than allowing the cat to eat the kill. Almost all rats and mice have some level of poison in their system.
Rats can live for up to 18 months with poison in their systems. The poison travels up the food chain and it can cause serious health problems for the predator.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, October 21, 2017. This is definitely a mouse.
Talk to your neighbors - if you live in the hills - everyone has rat stories. Some of us just document them.
If there is a construction site nearby, be sure they are disposing of their trash in a covered container as they are required by the municipal code. Rats already like construction and remodelling sites, because they gain entry to a house. Open trash piles and open trash cans make it easy for them to feed close to shelter.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, August 19, 2017. In the past few weeks, I've received reminders from multiple neighbors regarding rat poison and cats. When the cat, pictured here, showed up with a fresh kill, the cat's owner immediately distracted the cat with cat treats, praised the cat's hunting skills. Simultaneously, the owner scooped up the rat in a plastic bag and threw it in a closed trash bin.
The owner did not want the cat to get poisoned in the event the rat had ingested poison. Rat poison works its way up the food chain, as the Griffith Park Mountain Lion, P-22's bout with mange highlighted the way rat poison weakens the immune systems of the animals further up the food chain. P-22 recovered with veterinary assistance, but he was a much larger animal than a killer house cat. House cats are extremely sensitive to poisons. Bobcat deaths from the effects of secondary poisoning are epidemic in the Los Angeles Area.
Another neighbor contacted me last week after finding a dead rat on the sidewalk. The rat showed no sign of trauma or puncture woulds. The neighbor suspects rat poison and is concerned that people dispose of dead rats appropriately - bag up the dead rat and throw it in the trash. DO NOT throw rats retrieved by your cat or killed in a trap, into a vacant lot, your neighbor's yard or in the street. A cat, some dogs and scavengers may ingest poison causing serious illness or potentially death.
Read more abut the dangers of rat poison in the food chain: Urban Carnivores.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, May 1, 2017. After weekend brush clearance, a neighbor's cats turned the yard into their own killing fields, sharing three gophers with their owner in the past two mornings.
Hawks, like the cats, are more frequently seen hanging around lots where brush clearance is being or was recently done. Look for Red Tailed Hawks sitting on tree branches, tops of telephone poles or even the railing of your deck, intently watching something on the nearby lot lot. (Yes, we have very urban hawks.) The hawks' backs are usually to the sun, so the prey is temporarily blinded when the hawk swoops in for the kill.
Corralitas neighbors have long witnessed this hunting behavior. We've even seen hawks drop in for a kill, while workers were still weed whacking the lot. A few of us have actually been used by the hawks as we walked the Corralitas Public Staircase. The hawks were using humans to screen for them, often only changing course slightly around the human's head then dropping back in to the human's shadow. Both Red Tails and a few Cooper's Hawks have used this technique hunting near the Corralitas Public Staircase. They're also careful to time their descent when the person is either distracted or has their back to the hawk. This is a brilliant adaptation of hunting technique in our urban hillside neighborhood.
Its usually around this time of year when hawks' eggs are hatching. They to feed rapidly growing chicks (in an area where almost every vacant lot has been built) the successful hawks adapted.
Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, May 5, 2016. A neighbor moved quickly when one of the cats brought a fat, fluffy gopher, "skeezicked but alive," into the living room. The neighbor immediately jumped up and flung the gopher out the door and took some photos. "The gopher was clicking its teeth ferociously."
Apparently, the cats thought it was too plush to kill. The neighbor spotted the still skeezicked gopher hanging out on the patio a few hours later.
While unusual, it's not the first time we've seen gophers above ground. You just don't expect them in your living room.
Gophers are annoying in the garden, taking entire tomato plants down into their holes (yes, really, I watched it happen last year) and killing your favorite young fruit trees. However, they serve and essential role in the food web, tilling the soil, providing flood control as well as serving as food for coyote, fox, bobcat, hawk and snake.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 9, 2015. If you look closely, the Red Tail is clutching a good sized mammal. The rodent's hind legs and butt are just barely visible to the right and beneath the hawk. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 9, 2015. When I shot these photos, I thought something was odd about the way the hawk was perched atop the big pine tree near the top of Corralitas, So I zoomed all the way in. Unfortunately, the first photo (above) was the best I could do. Plus, this appears to be a very mature hawk, that's why I thing it's a squirrel. The younger hawks don't seem to catch squirrels easily. Additionally, I know this hawk has been hanging around the top of Corrallitas near the construction site, scoping it out for rats.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 19, 2015. I believe this is a small gopher trying to threaten my dog on the Red Car Property, behind Rose Scharlin Nursery School. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
While walking just before dark, I noticed a strangely shaped rodent running back & forth across the Red Car Property in a panic. It was about 3-4" long. At a distance, I couldn't tell what it was, but thought it might be an escaped hamster from Rose Scharlin. While it was running, it was very flat to the ground. So I stopped quite a ways back to take photos. I didn't want to spook it, if it was an escaped pet. Once I zoomed in, I could tell it was definitely not a hamster.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 19, 2015. It was not a hamster: round head, little eyes & longer tail. It must have gotten away from a cat. I've never seen a a gopher run around above ground. It probably could not find its way back to a tunnel.
I let it go about its panicked runaround, hoping a hawk would spot it next.
Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, December 12, 2014. Lake Corralitas returned in a big way with nearly 2 inches of rain this morning.* (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Yesterday the trail was dry.
Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, December 12, 2014. Much of the southern end of the Red Car Property is under water this morning.
Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, December 12, 2014. The vernal pool at the Corralitas end is very deep. Where will the water go?
Photo: Jonathan Vandiveer, December 12, 2014. Much of it will drain to the street on Corralitas Drive, into the storm drain, then off to the LA River. The network of gopher holes in the slope help drain the water to the street.**
*Updated rainfall totals
December 12, 2014, 4:15 PM: additional 0.2"
Season to Date: 4.79"
Thanks Jonathan for heading out into the mud between downpours this morning! We'll post more of his photos shortly.
UPDATE: A Red Car Property neighbor who is also a landscape designer, writes, "Hopefully most of the water will be absorbed into the soil and filtered
into the aquifer. That's the goal for stormwater, and the gophers help
in a big way."
Photo: Diane Edwardson, November 23, 2014. Caught in the act, a squirrel was sprinting across the expanse of Silver Lake Court (a paper street) near the Silver Lake Ave Public Staircase, with a Black Walnut in its mouth. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014. The large Red Tailed Hawk was stalking prey from across the meadow on the Corralitas end of the Red Car Property. She looks rather pleased with her squirrel. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
I was walking through the canyon and too far to get a shot of the hawk launching her attack from the top of the telephone pole and rather casually swooping in low toward the hillside, sun at her back. I was too far away to get a shot of her on the hill, but she seemed to catch the squirrel on the ground while it ran between protected native Black Walnut trees.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014. By the time I caught up with her, she was already digging into her squirrel safely atop an opuntia cactus half way up the steep slope to Lake View Ave. She did keep looking upslope though, as if there were another predator, like a coyote, was watching her tear into her breakfast.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014. A big Red Tailed Hawk was perched atop the telephone pole at the Corralitas end of the Red Car Property. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Sun at her back, she was watching for squirrels in the protected Southern California Black Walnut Trees & the ground surrounding them, from her telephone pole.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 30, 2014. Red Tailed Hawks have extraordinary eyesight. This one was grooming, pulling foxtails out of her feathers (see first photo - there's one sticking out of the chest feathers) yet alert to any movement on the hillside that might be breakfast. Her head would suddenly snap to a squirrel or other rodent moving on the hill.
Any prey might not see her atop the pole with the sun at her back. And she would gain a few seconds of surprise on her potential meal as they were temporarily blinded by the sun.
Come back tomorrow to see if she was successful.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 26, 2014. One of the very large Red Tailed Hawks landed in the tree next door with a creature in its talons. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
I had run outside with my camera because two of the large Red Tails were calling excitedly & swooping low in my yard. This usually is the sign they've caught a meal.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 26, 2014. It wasn't until I looked at the photos, I could tell that breakfast was a tree rat. (This is one more reason not to use rat bait/poison. It works its way up the food chain and is causing harm to predators.)
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 26, 2014. The juvenile Red Tail landed in the tree the adult just left behind. Clearly, the adult was keeping the rat for herself. The youngster kept calling from the tree then chasing after the adult for the next 10 minutes.
Read more about anti-coagulant rat poison: Urban Carnivores
Save the date! Ojai Raptor Center Open House Sunday October 26, 2014
Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 5, 2014. Our resident Red Tailed Hawks have definitely been slacking off - the squirrels never used to nap out in the open like this. This branch is within the line of site to their nest at Rosebud & Allesandro. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
He's just biding his time so he can steal more heirloom tomatoes!
Photo: Diane Edwardson, May 25, 2014. I can't recall ever seeing so much fruit on the Southern California Black Walnut Trees in the canyon. The squirrels usually strip the walnuts from the trees long before they've matured. (Click
on photo to enlarge.)
Photo: Diane Edwardson, March 5, 2010. Dead rat near Adelbert on the Red Car Property. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
Rat poison travels up the food chain, causing disease & killing predators including hawks, coyotes, foxes, bobcats & even mountain lions. See yesterday's story about the Griffith Park Mountain Lion, P-22: LA Times
Photo: Esteban Gonzalez, February 5, 2014. Who needs the Animal Planet, Gonzalez just has to look out his windows.
*With apologies to our loyal readers, for a variety of reasons unrelated to the Red Car Property, we've been unable to post regularly this week. We hope to be back on our regular daily schedule within a few days.
Photos: © Miguel Ordeñana, some rights reserved, Los Angeles County Natural Museum camera trap, May 2013. Coyote. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
For a week last May, Wildlife on the Red Car Property was documented with a remote critter camera on the LA Nature Map. Ordeñana is a field biologist & lead gallery interpreter at the LA County Natural History Museum.
Jonathan Vandiveer, Red Car Property neighbor & blog contributor, commented (when I sent him the link last summer), "The timestamp on the coyote photo indicates I'd just jogged through the canyon. I never saw him. The close angle and expression on his face is one you'd only get with a remote camera."
Striped Skunk
Raccoon
Virginia Opossum
Eastern Fox Squirrel
Domestic Cat. From the size of his neck, I'd say it's an intact male.
Stuff you missed last year: we shoot & collect tons of photos. So we try to wrap up the year with some interesting ones we never got a chance to run.
