When you’re camera trapping, each time you capture a new animal, it’s a celebration. At first you get lots of new stuff, but after a few years you tend to see the same (fill in the blank) that are common in your area.

So it’s pretty exciting that in just two months we scored not one, not two but three new mammals.

With the holidays, we got a little bit behind in managing our Trail Camera photos (Jeff is running 11 camera stations at the moment), so we are combining November and December 2019 Highlights into one post.

So drumroll please….

Here are the new entries on our list:

New Critter #1 Marten

Jeff has been after marten photos all summer and we finally got one. OK to be fair, we thought it was another Fisher so we were SUPER stoked, but after sending the shots into WA Fish and Wildlife and having all the top wildlife people in the state give their input, it was determined that this was a Marten.

Still pretty exciting, but we couldn’t help but feel like it was a consolation prize since Fishers are way more rare. At least we know that our mountain can support Marten.

Then, a few weeks later at a different camera station a few miles away, we picked up marten again – and then it reappeared on three different occasions. So now it’s marten bonanza after going years without ever seeing one!

New Critter #2 Elk

We’d seen elk tracks a few times on our mountain, but this was the first time we had one pass by our camera. It was also one of the rare times that an animal passed in front of two different cameras at different locations (which almost never seems to happen). Another nice plus, was that it was solid visual confirmation on what we thought we were seeing in the field.

New Critter #3 Long Tailed Weasel

We’ve had two sightings of this weasel species (also called a stoat) near our house but this is the first time at this location, and the first time on camera.

Technically we can’t say for certain on this ID (short tailed weasels – also called ermines – look similar in appearance) but the length of the tail looks like the long tailed variety.

For comparison here’s a snowshoe hare in the same location. Different body type and jump profile.

Here are a bunch more highlights as fall slid into winter.