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Pretty sure this half eaten deer was recently buried by a mountain lion. Looks like maybe a mule deer? You can see the ear and the leg of the deer. Also, scratch marks of the possible lion. The buried deer was moved there within 24 hours of when we saw it.

Spotted at Caspers wilderness Park on 7/4/21 on a mountain bike ride. The coyote was standing at attention and I was photographing it when the badger crossed interview and the coyote moved off. Presumably this was a symbiotic feeding behavior

Sign: Found several sign posts throughout this park with scratches on them. One of them also had black bear hair.

Medulla ladder-like, fragmented and stretched.

Sign post may serve as a scent marker or be an attractant due to the unusual smell.

This was an hour-long trailing experience. A family of three mountain lions killed a deer at one end of the riverbar. They then dragged it all the way to the other end and into the brush, where they fed on it for several days. This observation shows the first part of the trail with the kill site and evidence that the prey was a deer is shown. Will show other sections of the trail later. The deer was in brush and the mountain lions (2 of them from the track evidence) jumped it from the embankment above. It was quickly dispatched and one lion carried it out into the open. One of the cubs helped drag the carcass, as evidenced by the tracks. Video will be posted soon.

This was an hour-long trailing experience. A family of three mountain lions killed a deer at one end of the riverbar. They then dragged it all the way to the other end and into the brush, where they fed on it for several days.

This observation shows the last part of the trail with the kill site. All that remained of the deer were the legs, the cranium and mandibles, a single scapula, some fur, and the contents of the rumen. (The large green mass in the photos.) There were several resting sites (beds) in the grass, where the family of three pumas had rested in between feeding bouts. The carcass had initially been buried closer to the riverbar, but they moved it, likely due to my own activities. I live right above this and had been out and about above them, without even being aware of their presence. They are quite stealthy. Until I found the tracks, I never suspected they were in the close vicinity, although I was aware of the family of three from previously finding their tracks. The last images are somewhat dark as it was after sunset when I finished trailing this out.

This was an hour-long trailing experience. A family of three mountain lions killed a deer at one end of the riverbar. They then dragged it all the way to the other end and into the brush, where they fed on it for several days.

This observation shows the central part of the trail. At one point, one of the smaller mountain lions, assumed to be one of the nearly-grown kittens, assisted the mother lion in carrying the carcass. It left a consistent drag mark, so they were not able to lift it completely off the ground. I found it interesting that two were cooperating to carry the kill. The tracks showed evidence of bearing extra weight due to increased toe splay, push-offs in the soil, claws deployed for traction, and the position in the trail. The nail marks are thin and sharp and on a plane above the base of the toe marks in the track. Fur on the ground indicated the identity of the prey, as did drag marks presumed to be from the hooves.

This pile of whatever, poop I am guessing, was up on a cliff face. There were the two small rocks oddly within it and white streaks on the rocks above it. The third photo is of the space between the rocks which is big enough for bats. The rocks seem to me like they would be cold even in summer and I am not sure about south facing. Maybe. Not sure what to make of this but I have seen it before and would like to know what made this. If you know anything, please share.

26 FEB 2021 ANZA BORREGO DESERT: On our quarterly transect of the Narrows - while investigating woodrat nests - the Anza Borrego Desert Tracking Team came across what appeared at first blush to be a very large bobcat latrine under rip rap supporting the steep bank of Highway 78. The scats were all on the small side for bobcat - approximately 3/8 - 1/2" diameter - and not well segmented. A few were connected in typical tootsie-roll lengths but many were not. None of the team had ever seen anything like this before. We find lots of bobcat scat in the Narrows, much of it in latrines, but nothing under a rip rap wall in such a volume, and none of it this small.

I put a cam on the "scat cave" on 26 February and retrieved the
SD Card 14 March 2021. Seven animals appeared. Most notable was a Ringtail 26 Feb just a few hours after I departed. The scat matches Mark Elbroch's and James Lowery's descriptions for Ringtail.

Other images captured were of a Rock Wren, Black-throated Sparrow, Bryant's Woodrat, Merriam's K-rat, Peromyscus, Antelope Ground Squirrel and a Desert Cottontail.
San Diego Tracking Team and Anza Borrego Tracking Team trail camera wildlife monitoring of wildlife in the The Narrows area of Anza Borrego Desert State Park by permit with California state parks.

Yesterday morning, the skies cleared up for half an hour or so, and I spotted a Merlin on the cypress across from my kitchen window. I went outside to take pictures. After three minutes, the Merlin pulled a dead bird up it had hidden in the cypress and started plucking it. I collected a few small feathers until the next rain shower came down hard, and will look for more feathers today. Based on what I can tell so far, the Merlin had caught a Spotted Towhee.

Found deceased on road; used gloves to handle for study photos and left the bird on-site after. I especially wanted to document those zygodactyl feet (pictured is a right foot) for gripping those vertical surfaces, as well as the stiff, downward-propping tail feathers that provide mechanical support to the body while pecking/ drilling.

Just in time for City Nature Challenge, an update on a Green Heron nest I had discovered on the side of the road three weeks ago, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/41491093. It looked like four little Green Herons have hatched and were filling the nest to capacity, with their protective parent towering over them. Once again, this nest made my day…

I am posting this observation again, with the hopes I will not be harassed this time around. I am asking for peoples expert opinions on what I saw, not for there insults. I enjoy this app, but being rude to people that are coming from all sorts of backgrounds to learn, ruins the experience. I BELIEVE this is a bear, but I really don’t know. The print on the fence is about 3x3 inches.