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1/250 f/4.0 108.0 mm ISO 100

Panasonic DMC-FZ200

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animal
Kananaskis
Lagomorpha
K-Country
FZ200
annkelliott
Anne Elliott
American Pika
Highway 40
front/side view
Pika
Ochonta princeps
Ochotonidae
Ochonta
6-9 inches long
scree
Canadian Rockies
nature
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wildlife
close-up
rocks
native
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Canada
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Alberta
Rocky Mountains
cold climates


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Living in a rocky world

Living in a rocky world
I took quite a few photos of two of these beautiful little Pikas - enough shots to keep me from feeling like going through them all to find a few more that are OK to post. This is one of the closer captures, when this little animal froze for a few moments.

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 sit for a second or two, lol! As time passed, I managed to take quite a few photos, though many needed to be deleted. Hope you don't get tired of seeing these little guys, but they are just so very cute. A couple of times, this Pika came bounding over the rocks near to where we were standing and just sat there, long enough to get a few very close shots. They are about 15 to 23 centimetres (5.9 to 9.1 in) in body length, so really are pretty small, especially when off in the distance.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pika

I found this excellent and amusing YouTube video, 3:30 minutes long, It is The American Pika in the BBC's Life of Mammals series.

youtu.be/Sifk9uphr2Q

The weather forecast was not good for that day, but we were so lucky that, apart from a few raindrops, the rain stayed away. The sun actually came out at two locations we stopped at for a short while. Our 18-hour day (from 6;00 a.m. till midnight!) started off with the thrill of seeing these Pikas and ended with a brief sighting of a black Wolf (could it be Skoki?) crossing the road ahead of us in the dark. It disappeared into the blackness, but shortly afterwards, we heard three (possibly four) separate Wolves howling way off in the distance. We just stood there, in total awe, listening to this amazing sound. The only wild Wolf I had ever seen before was when I was in Yellowstone National Park two years ago. Friends and I saw two Wolves feeding on a Bison carcass across a huge valley - so they were just distant specks, that became slightly larger specks when my camera was in full zoom, ha.

In between these two highlights, we saw several Deer, a small group of Mountain Sheep on the road, a tiny Chipmunk, a few Cedar Waxwings, Columbian Ground Squirrels, a beautiful Red-tailed Hawk that sat on a branch out in the open for a long time, and two tiny Bats that flew very close over our heads when it was getting dark. We also saw an adult Grouse (Spruce Grouse?) with two young ones.

Then, of course, there is the scenery! Blue sky to go with the splendour of the mountains would have been wonderful, but we had been having cold and gloomy weather for a while before this day out. Highway 40 and the Smith-Dorrien/Spray Lakes Trail both run through such spectacular scenery, so it was a real treat for me, especially as I won't drive to those areas myself.

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