Back to Back Cats

Our one remote camera came up with these nice images of an ocelot and a puma walking a trail in the Gallon Jug Estate.  It's wonderful to see these cats as they go about their nightly business and know that the Gallon Jug Estate harbors so many of these magnificent animals.  That makes another reason why our area is unique!

The Cats are Back (II)

Dark moon, short days in late December...perfect cat conditions. I promised more cats ... and here they are. December 29 and 30 were big cat nights near the Lodge. The previous post showed an ocelot and jaguar moving through the area ... and here they are again.

Lots of cat activity at this location on the Sylvester Village road near the intersection with the River Trail. Lots of bird activity too. I understand from the Lodge managers that the bench has been relocated back to its previous position. While the bench doesn't necessarily add much to the camera trap images, the real reason was to minimize disturbance to the nesting Ornate Hawk-Eagles. These are magnificent birds and I have a magnificent image of one, coming right up!

The Cats are Back (I)

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It's a nice way to start the New Year with the cat-loaded camera trap results from late December at Chan Chich Lodge. I haven't posted camera trap photos in a long time. Of the three cameras we had earlier in 2010, only one now is operational -- and it has had its share of problems.

But look at the interesting results for the nights of 28 and 29th December! First a male ocelot strolls by and the next night, a male jaguar. Going to my jaguar database, I can't find a match for this fellow, so perhaps he is fairly new on the scene.

The bench, for those that may be wondering, as been moved to offer optimal viewing of an Ornate Hawk-Eagle nest in progress. You can get an idea of size, comparing the bench to the cats.

Stayed tuned ... more cats coming right up.

Out of Commission

One of the fun things about the remote cameras is how immediate they are. That is, you check the CF card and "just last week," or even a few hours ago, an animal has been recorded going about its daily, or nightly, business.

Well, I'm sorry to report that the camera I've been using is out of commission. It hadn't been functioning very well over the last couple of months -- shooting through a lot of pictures with "nothing" in them. I think I mentioned that the recent tapir series was just plain lucky -- out of 8000 "nothing" images, fortunately this magnificent animal was in a few of them.

We had some correspondence with the camera company, tried some troubleshooting, and bottom line, we have to send it back for repair. This might be a trivial task if you are based in, say, North America. Here though with the slower postal system (and not to malign anyone, it is a very reliable postal system), and the inevitable customs, duty, and importation bureaucracy, this is going to take some time.

Fortunately, the Chan Chich cameras are still operating, so we'll just concentrate on them in the meantime. And, for your viewing pleasure, above is a female ocelot from July, near Chan Chich Lodge.

Twice an Ocelot

Thanks to Ben at Chan Chich Lodge, we have this nice sequence of a female ocelot. Actually, if you look carefully, you can see that this is actually two sequences about 40 minutes apart on the Bajo Trail. I'm guessing it is the same individual passing back through the same location. As you may have noticed in other images, the scrotum on a male cat is normally easily visible, especially in profile. No such thing here as well as the lighter, sleeker build make this a female.

Mid-May Ocelots

It's been a bit of a dry spell between camera trap photos. The camera I've been using has been in for cleaning and repairs recently (it's been doing things like shooting 1700+ images of "nothing" in 1 hour) but it's now back in service. Luckily Ben came through with this nice pair of mid-May ocelot photos from Chan Chich Lodge, the Bajo Trail.

One was shot on May 13 and the other on May 16. It's not entirely straightforward to compare the two images but from what I can tell by zooming in, this is not the same individual. The ocelot in profile (lower picture) is certainly a familiar-looking male often photographed in this Bajo Trail intersection near the Lodge.

Lots of Ocelots

From a photographic perspective, it's a shame ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) are so nocturnal. Since they are active at night, it means the remote camera kicks over to infra-red so they appear in black-and-white. That doesn't do justice to its lovely buffy-golden color. In the hundreds of ocelot images taken over many years of camera trapping, I think I have had "day time" ocelots only on three occasions.

The images above were taken over two nights in March on the far Punta de Cacao road, about 15 km east of the farm on the Gallon Jug Estate property. It is a densely forested area seldom visited by people, only because it is not accessible most times of the year due to muddy conditions or treefall.

Besides a spotted pattern, ocelots also feature distinctive striping on the shoulders. In this sequence one individual is fairly distinctive due to the stripe on its left side. Watch the sequence carefully for the frame of two ocelots together.

Mark of the ocelot

Really, a great thing about these camera traps, is the "rapidfire" ability which captures some behavior. This is an ocelot, a mid-sized spotted cat, that is actually fairly common throughout much of Belize. They are almost always photographed at night -- and this sequence is from Chan Chich just a couple of weeks ago -- which means the infrared is used.

While the infra-red is terrific in many ways, unfortunately the ocelot's beautiful golden/buffy coat pattern appears in black-and-white. Still in this sequence, the male ocelot is going about his evening business including spraying. Spraying urine is an important marking mechanism that cats use to communicate and mark territory. Kind of fun to see this guy going about his normal behaviors for us.

Another ocelot

Ok, that first photo wasn't the easiest to make out. Let's try this: a really nice camera trap photo of an ocelot "posing" from early 2009 near the Lodge.

Ocelot or margay?

I thought I’d start off this little blog adventure with a camera trap photo. Although I've conducted camera-trap studies for years in the Gallon Jug Estate, as well as other parts of Belize, at the moment I am (sadly) without camera traps. All is not lost -- Chan Chich Lodge manager, Ben, has 3 camera traps that he has placed at random locations near the Lodge. Here is a recent photo.

There are two small spotted cats in Belize, the ocelot and the margay. This most looks like an ocelot to me, though it is hard to tell from the photo for sure. A couple of reasons:

1) margay tails are long and appear that they could drag the ground, whereas ocelot tails are shorter, about "knee length" -- in this photo, it appears shorter rather than longer

2) margays appear more delicate -- this is a pretty robust cat

3) margays have a more "open" streaked pattern along the neck area, admittedly hard to see in this photo

4) margays tend to occur in a different sort of forest rather than along rivers, in my experience; generally a shorter, scrubbier dry forest

I'm going with "ocelot," but it is difficult to say for sure.