Tag Archives: small mammal

Realistic Motion Photography (Of Cute Fuzzy Mice)

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You may remember a previous post in which I described a project to evaluate the impact of our prairie restoration work on small mammals.  Mike Schrad, a Nebraska Master Naturalist, is helping us collect some pilot data to see whether small mammal species in our remnant prairies are also using the adjacent restored prairies.  Mike is now in his second season of that project, and last week he had a great start to this collecting season.  Among other species, he caught a number of grasshopper mice and plains pocket mice in some upland sandy areas of our Platte River Prairies.

There will be more to come on those mouse species and the significance of finding them (especially the plains pocket mouse, which is a Tier 1 species (high conservation priority) in the Nebraska Natural Legacy Plan).  Today, though, I wanted to share some distinctive photographs of the two species.  I hope it will be immediately clear that I’m experimenting with an exciting new style of wildlife photography – one that represents a more realistic view of how people generally see wildlife.

This might be my favorite photograph of the batch. Note how easily you can see the smudge of light-colored fur beneath the blurry ear, and the indistinct yellowish streak along the body. Along with size, those are the distinctive characters that best separate these pocket mice from other species.

This might be my favorite photograph of the batch. Note how easily you can see the smudge of light-colored fur beneath the blurry ear, and the indistinct yellowish streak along the body. Along with size, those are the characters that best separate pocket mice from other species.

After getting a couple of dry and boring documentary photos of a plains pocket mouse in Mike’s hand, we put one into a cardboard box in order to get something a little different.  It worked so well, we repeated the process with a grasshopper mouse.  I’m sure you’ll agree that these photographs portray these little creatures as we typically see them in the wild, unlike many of the photos you see in so-called “wildlife magazines” and “nature websites”.   Those tack-sharp photographs of animals sitting perfectly still and displaying their most charismatic features and poses in beautiful light are completely unrealistic.  Who wants to look at them?  Exactly.  What’s much more useful are photographs that show these creatures just as you might see them while hiking – a quick blur of fur zipping from one bit of cover to the next.

Here's a great shot of the long blurry tail pocket mice are known for. Note how pink it is as it streaks past...

Here’s a great shot of the long blurry tail pocket mice are known for. Note how pink it is as it streaks past…

Here's an even better shot of the tail, without any of the distractions of the mouse's body itself. This is how I often see mice in the field (except for the cardboard box, of course).

Here’s an even better shot of the tail, without any of the distractions of the mouse’s body itself. This is how I often see mice in the field (except for the cardboard box, of course).

When we put the grasshopper mouse in the box, I experimented with providing a more natural background of dried grasses. I'm not sure yet if I like the effect. It almost seems like it distracts from the subject...

When we put the grasshopper mouse in the box, I experimented with providing a more natural background of dried grasses. I’m not sure yet if I like the effect. It almost seems like it distracts from the subject…

Note the larger size, fuzzier (and shorter) tail, and grayer fur of this grasshopper mouse as it streaks past.

Note the larger size, fuzzier (and shorter) tail, and grayer fur of this grasshopper mouse as it zips past.

This one came out almost too sharp to be useful, but it does show the pointy nose that helps distinguish the grasshopper mice from other species.

This image highlights the pointy nose that helps distinguish the grasshopper mice from other species.

Some people will probably see these photos and think I’m just concocting wild justifications to cover my inability to take good sharp photographs of these little mice.  Those people obviously have no imagination or appreciation for the field of realistic motion photography, which I am currently developing and describing.  They will probably also not be among those who flock to buy my forthcoming field guide to wildflowers, entitled “Roadside Wildflowers at 60 Miles Per Hour”, in which each wildflower species is represented by a blurry streak of color that shows how it actually looks as you drive by on the highway.  I feel sorry for those people.

On the other hand, to you readers who appreciate my pioneering work, thank you for your support, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed my first attempt in this new medium.  Be assured that I’ll take many more similar photographs in the future, and will probably share some of the blurriest – and thus most useful – with you.

Assessing Prairie Restoration Through the Eyes of Small Mammals – Part 1

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We’ve taken another step in the right direction…

Over the last several years, we’ve begun to evaluate our prairie restoration work beyond just looking at plant communities.  Our primary objective for restoration is to functionally enlarge and reconnect fragmented remnant (unplowed) prairies by restoring the land parcels around and between them.   (See more on that topic here.)  Because of that, it’s pretty important that we look at whether or not species – plant and animal – living in those remnant prairies are actually using and moving through our restored prairies.   In 2012, we brought James Trager and Mike Arduser to our Platte River Prairies to help us start measuring our success in terms of ants and bees, respectively.  We’re still early in that effort, but things look good for both so far.  Most ant and bee species living in our prairie remnants are also showing up in nearby restored prairies.

A deer mouse peers out of the thatch.

A deer mouse peers out of the thatch.

Now we’re hoping to find similar patterns with small mammals.  Mike Schrad, a Nebraska Master Naturalist, has volunteered to help us see whether the small mammal species in our remnant prairies are also in adjacent restored prairies.  We’ve begun by looking at a single 200 acre prairie complex that consists of a remnant prairie surrounded by several restored prairies (former crop fields seeded with 150 or more plant species back in the mid-1990’s).  Mike came out for three nighttime sampling periods in 2013 to see what he could catch in the remnant prairie and one of the adjacent restored prairies.

Mike and I have been looking over the data from this first year, and I’m pretty encouraged by what he’s found so far.  He caught four species in the remnant prairie, and all four were also in the adjacent restored prairie.  In addition, a fifth species, the short-tailed shrew, was caught only in the restored area – but only once.  The five mammal species he caught were:

Prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster)

Meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus)

Harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys sp.)

Deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus)

Short-tailed shrew (Blarina hylophaga)

The relative abundance data for each species caught by site are interesting (see the table below), and reflect the fact that the sites had been largely rested from fire and grazing during the last couple of years.  Voles are attracted to the kind of thatchy grassland habitat found in ungrazed/unburned prairie, and they were caught more often than any other species in our site.  The higher numbers of voles in the remnant prairie might indicate a more dense vegetation structure there than in the restored prairie (or might have just been happenstance).  It was also interesting to see more harvest mice caught in the restored prairie, though the total numbers were low enough that we aren’t drawing any strong conclusions from them.  The total number of animals caught by species and site are below:

2013 Data

On the one hand, seeing the same species in both remnant and restored prairie might not seem very surprising.  Our restored prairies have the same plant species in them as the remnant prairies, and are managed the same way.  It seems likely that small mammals can find everything they need for food and shelter there.  On the other hand, it’s dangerous to blindly assume that we’re providing for the needs of all species when we restore prairies.  The mouse and vole species we saw this year have been pretty well studied, but we still don’t know everything about what they need to survive.  What looks like two identical habitats to us might be very different to a 2 inch tall little critter.  For those reasons, it’s nice to see some support for our assumptions – though we still need much more data.

Mike Schrad records data from one of his trapping efforts. Mike is a Nebraska Master Naturalist, one of many volunteers being deployed around the state to help with conservation and science projects.

Mike Schrad records data from one of his trapping efforts. Mike is a Nebraska Master Naturalist, one of many volunteers being deployed around the state to help with conservation and science projects.

Over the next month or two, Mike and I will be planning future sampling efforts.  Ideally, we’ll repeat the same kind of trapping he did in 2013, but do so at other sites were we have adjacent remnant and restored prairies.  If we continue to see the same pattern of use – the species in the remnant prairie also using adjacent restored prairie – I’ll start to feel even better about our ability to defragment prairies from a small mammals’ perspective.

However, even if we continue to see results similar to this year, there will be more to learn.  First, there are several less common species of small mammals in our prairies (we think) that weren’t caught this year.  Two of those are plains pocket mouse and plains harvest mouse, both of which could be in our upland areas and are priority conservation species in Nebraska.  Another is Franklin’s ground squirrel, a species we see periodically in our lowlands, but which has disappeared from most tallgrass prairies in the eastern U.S.  I’d like to know that we’re creating habitat for those less common species, as well as for the common ones we caught this year.

There is still a lot to learn about how well our restored prairies are working.  However, with each step we take, I feel a little better about our ability to reduce the impacts of habitat fragmentation by restoring strategic parcels around and between prairie fragments.  Knowing we can do it doesn’t make it economically or socially feasible, but those other factors are irrelevant if we can’t solve the technical issues first – and prove that we’ve done so.

One step at a time…