An enemy in the nest

So I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing a nest being predated right before my very eyes. (Or unlucky circumstance... it's a little of both really.) Most of the time we never know what has eaten a particular clutch of eggs or nestlings. We have ideas (Island Fox, Island Spotted Skunk, Cooper's Hawk, Common Raven), but don't know for sure unless we see the event in action, or get it on video. Documented nest predators of Island scrub jay nests up to this point are only the Island Fox and Cooper's Hawk. These were both captured on video, and are up on youtube. (Cooper's Hawk, Island Fox)The predation event that I happened to witness was a new nest predator... and was caught on video.

I had put up a hard disk video camera on Taurus' nest in Coches at approximately 6 in the morning. The video would be useful for looking at feeding rates of nestlings. I believe the nestlings were about 7 days old. When I came back around 12 to remove the camera and check the nest things got interesting. I extended my mirror pole and stuck it up over the nest, trying to get a look inside at how many nestlings were in there. But I couldn't see anything. The nest looked empty. That wasn't right. I'd just seen the adults with full crops. So I pulled the pole back, readjusted the mirror, and went to put the mirror up again. I didn't have to. When I got close to the nest I heard a little "peep!" and saw a nestling butt appear over the rim of the nest. That's weird I thought. If I was going to see any part of the nestling at this stage it should just be the tip of a begging mouth. I looked a little closer... That's when I noticed that it appeared that there was a lizard like face around that nestling butt. I quickly ran out of the nest clump and grabbed my camera.



Sure enough, a Gopher Snake had somehow found the nest and wound its way up in there. It was now mawing down on one of three nestlings. However, I disturbed the snake's lunch, and it decided that one nestling was enough when faced with the larger human predator now hovering over the nest. The snake abandoned ship, and moved out of the nest as quick as its now sluggish body would take it.



And that was the end of one of Taurus' nestlings.