Читать книгу Top Trails: Lake Tahoe. Must-Do Hikes for Everyone онлайн

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The highly adaptable coyote is often seen loping across the meadows and through the woodlands of Lake Tahoe. From backcountry campsites spread around the Tahoe Basin, backpackers frequently hear the coyote’s nighttime chorus of howls and yelps. Though many area residents are familiar with the coyote, they fail to realize that it is omnivorous, preferring a diet of small rodents but also dining on berries and plants when such prey is unavailable.

Other common, medium-sized mammals of Lake Tahoe include martens, marmots, raccoons, porcupines, red foxes, weasels, and badgers. Hikers frequently see Douglas squirrels, California ground squirrels, golden-mantled ground squirrels, western gray squirrels, western flying squirrels, and chipmunks. Smaller rodents include pikas, voles, shrews, mice, moles, and pocket gophers.

At dusk, backpackers camped around one of Tahoe’s backcountry lakes are almost guaranteed a visit from a handful of bats searching the skies for the evening’s first course of insects. Midsummer visitors will be comforted to know that large helpings of mosquitoes are on the bats’ menu.