A sight for sore eyes
A youngster having fun
Young Yellow-bellied Marmot
The Hoodoo Trail, near Drumheller
Chipmunk with Foxtail
Old Catholic Church, Dorothy
Badland sentinel
Standing tall
Taveta Golden Weaver
The Hoodoo Trail
Seedpod of the Sacred Lotus
Love his glassy eyes
The beauty of low cloud
Living in a rocky world
One of two young brothers
Slime Mold
American Goldfinch
Sunset over Great Falls, US
Yellow-bellied Marmot
Taveta Golden Weaver
Silky Scorpionweed / Phacelia sericea, Pocaterra C…
Dreaming of spring and summer
Yellow-bellied Marmot - from the archives
Fall colours
Listening
Watching and waiting
McDougall Church on a sunny day
Owl butterfly
View over the Waterton Valley
Backlit
Me and my shadow
Skiff Elevator, after the storm
Just a little mushroom
Almost like art
A change from Marmots
Irresistable
When the mountains turn pink
Prince of Wales Hotel, Waterton
Hiding in the moss
Yesterday's treat
Burrowing Owl, after the storm
Sea Holly
Dusky Grouse female
Bison Paddock, Waterton Lakes National Park
A closer look
Those red, red rocks
Cameron Lake, Waterton
Cleaning the BBQ
Layers of blue
If it looks close, it's because it was!
Pure joy
Yesterday's storm clouds near Skiff, Alberta
Yellow-bellied Marmots
Red-tailed Hawk with tree bokeh
A touch of iridescence
Police Car Moth
The smoke breathing monster
Pika, busily feeding
Cautious mother of twins
Embracing the sun
The Kent (Superman) Farmhouse
Edelweiss
A beautiful display of Fireweed
A quick, two-second rest
What could be cuter?
Shades of brown
Broad-headed bug
The twins' Mom
Clouds over Frank Lake
One of two little fawns
Mourning Dove
Richness in nature
Erosion in Dinosaur Provincial Park
Just before it jumped
Now that's a whole lot of bull
Glad to see Gladioli
A fancy fungus
The Wilson's Snipe - such a fine bird
Chokecherry / Prunus virginiana
Juvenile Wilson's Phalarope
Police Car Moth and Skipper
The Avocet stretch
A look of intelligence
For a complete change of colour
Found when I was lost
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A moment to ponder
Just over a month ago, on 19 August 2014, I was lucky enough to have the chance to try and photograph a couple of these absolutely adorable little creatures : ) After a while, I was beginning to despair of ever getting any decent shots at all. These tiny Pikas, also known as Rock Rabbits, hardly ever remain still and they are extremely fast! Imagine a mountain hillside covered in sharp, jagged rocks of all sizes and then try to picture how difficult it is to find in the viewfinder the single rock on which one of these Pikas might happen to be sitting for a second or two, lol! By the time you find the rock, the Pika is long gone. They rely on existing spaces between the rocks for their homes - they don't dig a burrow, though they can dig to make their home bigger. Because the Pikas are a similar colour to many of the surrounding rocks, it is so difficult to see them - unless you happen to catch sight of some movement or you see a bunch of greenery moving at top speed over the rocky mountain side. At this time of year, they are so busy collecting plants and leaves to store in their little cave for the winter.
As time passed, I managed to take quite a lot of photos, though many will need to eventually be deleted. Hope you don't get tired of seeing these little guys, but they are just so very cute. They are about 15 to 23 centimetres (5.9 to 9.1 in) in body length, so really are pretty small. And, no, I didn't put one in my pocket to bring home with me!
"The American Pika is a generalist herbivore. It eats a large variety of green plants, including different kinds of grasses, sedges, thistles and fireweed. Although pikas can meet their water demands from the vegetation they eat, they do drink water if it is available in their environment. Pikas have two different ways of foraging: they directly consume food (feeding) or they cache food in haypiles to use for a food source in the winter (haying). The pika feeds throughout the year while haying is limited to the summer months. Since they do not hibernate, pikas have greater energy demands than other montane mammals. In addition, they also make 13 trips per hour to collect vegetation when haying, up to a little over 100 trips per day." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_pika
Link to a video that someone has posted on YouTube, to see and hear these little Rock Rabbits:
youtu.be/W4U9IxhQSTc
As time passed, I managed to take quite a lot of photos, though many will need to eventually be deleted. Hope you don't get tired of seeing these little guys, but they are just so very cute. They are about 15 to 23 centimetres (5.9 to 9.1 in) in body length, so really are pretty small. And, no, I didn't put one in my pocket to bring home with me!
"The American Pika is a generalist herbivore. It eats a large variety of green plants, including different kinds of grasses, sedges, thistles and fireweed. Although pikas can meet their water demands from the vegetation they eat, they do drink water if it is available in their environment. Pikas have two different ways of foraging: they directly consume food (feeding) or they cache food in haypiles to use for a food source in the winter (haying). The pika feeds throughout the year while haying is limited to the summer months. Since they do not hibernate, pikas have greater energy demands than other montane mammals. In addition, they also make 13 trips per hour to collect vegetation when haying, up to a little over 100 trips per day." From Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_pika
Link to a video that someone has posted on YouTube, to see and hear these little Rock Rabbits:
youtu.be/W4U9IxhQSTc
, novogorodec have particularly liked this photo
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