Because they count rats and mice among their numbers, rodents often get a bad rap from humans. Yet rodents are part of a food chain that supports many of West Marin’s most colorful carnivores. With that thought in mind, here’s a gallery of rodents found around my cabin.

A brush rabbit, also known as a cottontail, near my woodshed. Along with mice (I’ve trapped a few but will spare you postmortem photos) rabbits have more predators than any other rodent-like creatures on this hill. (Scientifically speaking, rabbits are lagomorphs rather than rodents.)

They’re a main ingredient in fox diets. Hawks and owls eat them. So do bobcats and snakes, coyotes and cougars. Unfortunately for this hill’s rabbits, foxes and coyotes are becoming more common while a cougar has been seen more than once recently along nearby Tomasini Canyon Road.

Gophers, the bane of West Marin gardeners, in fact sustain a variety of predators. Having just caught a gopher outside my window, this bobcat, with the rodent in its jaws, trots off to dine. Also preying on gophers are creatures ranging from housecats, hawks and mountain lions to foxes and badgers.

A Sonoma chipmunk out my kitchen door. Also providing food for many of West Marin’s carnivores are chipmunks. Despite predation by bobcats, badgers, foxes, hawks and owls, chipmunks are rated a species of “least concern” on the Endangered Species List.

A roof rat eating birdseed on my deck. Roof rats can do damage, especially to dishwashers ,when they get into a house. They’re prey for hawks and owls but less vulnerable to predators on the ground because the rats like to travel along branches, utility lines, and fence tops.

Roof rats originated in tropical Asia but spread through the Near East during the days of ancient Rome. They reached Europe by the 6th Century, and in the late 1340s, their fleas carried the bubonic plague that killed off half the population in some areas. Roof rats arrived in North America with the first ships to visit the New World.

A Western gray squirrel out my upstairs window. From what I can see, the main cause of gray squirrel mortality in West Marin is the motor vehicle. Their primary predators are red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, foxes, coyotes, dogs and cats.

So there you have it. Despite what the pest-control people say, having a few rodents around your house or rabbits around your garden makes for a healthy ecosystem. But guard your dishwasher.

The end of one year and the start of the next is traditionally a time for the news media to compile retrospectives, and this blog is no exception. Here are some of my favorite wildlife photos from the past all shot around my cabin in Point Reyes Station.

An increasing number of bobcats have been showing up on this hill during the past two years. I shot this photo through my kitchen window.

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A mother badger (known as a ‘sow’) along with her cub (sometimes known as a ‘kit’) sunning herself last May on the mound of dirt around their burrow (known as a ‘sett’).

Adult badgers are remarkably efficient diggers thanks to long claws and short, strong legs. Although they can run up to 17 or 18 mph for short distances, they generally hunt by digging fast enough to pursue rodents into their burrows.

Like skunks, badgers have perineal glands that emit quite a stench. What with the stench, the claws, and extremely strong jaws, adult badgers can hold their own against any potential attackers, including bears and coyotes, although they’d rather hide.

And speaking of coyotes, they too are becoming increasingly common on my hill. There were no coyotes in West Marin for 40 years, but when the federal government made sheep ranchers stop poisoning them, they began showing up here again in 1983.

In the last 25 years, they have put more than half the sheep ranches in West Marin and southern Sonoma County out of business. Of course, if you’re not a sheepman, it’s fun to see them and hear them yip and howl at night.

Raccoons are jolly neighbors unless they’re knocking over your garbage can or sneaking through your cat door. My cabin doesn’t have a cat door, and my garbage can is secured; however, when a mother and four kits were crossing my deck and found my kitchen door open, they walked right in.

Possums are not native to California but to the South. In his book The Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula, naturalist Jules Evens writes: “After the first known introduction into California at San Jose about 1900 (for meat, delicious with sweet potatoes), opossums spread rapidly southward.

“By 1931, they were common on the coastal slope from San Francisco Bay south to the Mexican border.” To the north, however, San Francisco Bay, along with the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, created a natural barrier, and they did not reach Point Reyes in any numbers until 1984, Evens notes.

Columbian blacktail deer. A young buck drowsily chews his cud outside my bedroom window.

A newly born fawn hides in tall grass less than a yard from my driveway. It remained motionless despite my standing overhead. Naturalist Evens speculated it probably thought it was invisible.

A wild turkey seen out my kitchen window. Like possums, wild turkeys are not native to California. In 1988, California’s Department of Fish and Game planted three toms and 11 hens for hunting at Loma Alta Ranch (on the ridge between Woodacre and Lucas Valley Road).

From there the turkeys spread to nearby Flander’s Ranch and the Spirit Rock property in Woodacre, and eventually to Nicasio, Olema, and even as far north as Tomales, where they have been known to intimidate small children and scratch the paint of cars on which they perch.

A Pacific gopher snake almost four feet long on Campolindo Road at the foot of my driveway.

“When disturbed, the gopher snake will rise to a striking position, flatten its head into a triangular shape, hiss loudly and shake its tail at the intruder,” the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum reports. “These defensive behaviors, along with its body markings, frequently cause the gopher snake to be mistaken for a rattlesnake.”

The gopher snake is actually a constrictor, and it plays an important role in keeping my hill’s rodent population under control. However, it can also climb trees, and it will eat birds and eggs when the opportunity arises.

A garter snake on my driveway. Garter snakes are the most-common genus of reptile in North America. Although they are venomous, their venom is too mild to harm humans. However, when they’re disturbed, garter snakes emit a foul-smelling secretion from a gland near their anus.

An arboreal salamander beside my front steps. Cold-blooded animals require much less energy to survive than do warm-blooded animals. In fact, many cold-blooded animals try to keep their body temperatures low when food is scarce.

Pacific tree frogs, such as this one on my deck, depend largely on camouflage to escape predators. Notice how the facial stripe hides this frog’s eyeball. In addition, the frog’s color changes as it moves around. But unlike the chameleon, which changes its color to match background colors, the Pacific tree frog’s color depends on how moist or dry its location is.

A buckeye butterfly atop a chrysanthemum blooming on my deck. Probably it’s just my zen-like psyche, but of all my nature photos, this is the one I like best.