While checking for mosquitoes in Jolly’s Pond, in Columbia, I saw several large aggregations of Sierran tree frog polliwogs. I’d not seen this before.

There were no mosquitoes, but thousands of frog larvae.

25 April 2019

Steve Deaver took this video of a severe carpenter ant infestation at a  home in MiWuk Village. 31 May 2018.

This roof rat was eating a decorative pumpkin. In the second section, we see im carrying off a Contrac rodent bait place pack, and that was the last time we saw him. Video recorded early March 2018, Columbia California.

This inchworm was collected by Jon Shattuck, Sonora California, 20 February 2018.

Common eumenid wasps are beneficial, as they hunt oakworms, saving our oak trees from defoliation. But people still do not like them in their homes. Here is a video showing the wasps, unable to re-enter the wall voids, after we caulked the entry points. Each of these wasps is carrying an oakworm. The white caulk will dry clear. Columbia California, 23 May 2017.

These videos, by Rob Hecocks, show boxelder bugs mating. 17 March 2017, Murphys California.

The rapidly rising water levels at New Melones is flooding southern fire ant nests.

Notice that Maggie Beck is pulling out a small submerged filaree that has a ball of southern fire ants attached: the ants were under water!

Video and photos taken 12 March 2017 by Maggie Beck, near Tuttletown.

Here is a film made from still images taken by a wildlife camera, placed to see what was living under this home in Mokelumne Hill, Calaveras County, California. It was a pair of pack rats. The one-way valve let the critters out, but they could not get back in. And they came back day after day, hour after hour, for over a week, to try and get back in. NOTE… the camera did not have the correct date set: the images were taken in December 2016.

We also see some local wildlife walk by: a raccoon, skunk, opossum, and something shy, elusive, and rare. Go to 3:02 in the video to see the one frame of the furtive creature. I shared the video with John Buckley of CSERC, an organization that uses a lot of similar cameras and is very familiar with the local wildlife. According to John, it “is almost certain to be a weasel….  it’s the right shape… right speed.” and “We only get them infrequently at our CSERC cameras, but they usually are rushing through the photo similarly.”

The weasel is likely there looking to eat those pack rats.

Here is some video from a drone we used to inspect a roof for squirrel entry points, in Arnold California, December 2016. The drone made a difficult job much easier.