Skunked

(July 25th) Up early and about I ran into a few Black-billed Magpies. I love these large birds with enormous tails. I always see them when I travel to the Rockies, but they elude me. This time I got a few frames, but there was no light, so I'll have to try again. So I went to a spot where I had noticed a ground squirrel colony. Turns out it was a Columbian Ground Squirrel city. These ground squirrels all live with tunnels right next to each other. They call out whenever there is danger to warn everyone in the colony. There were some killer rocks in the area that made for a very nice shot.

One of the greatest thrills and challenges with wildlife photography is approaching the wildlife to get to the right distance. It's definitely something that you get better at the more you know a species, and wildlife in general. Quite often you fail though. Maybe you go a little too fast, maybe the animal is especially skittish, maybe the wind is in the wrong direction. Usually squirrels are fairly easy animals to get close to. But these Columbian Ground Squirrels spooked quickly. When they spooked, the whole colony went underground. It was going to take a long time before they would be back out and ready to photograph. I did get a few nice pictures before they spooked, but I was pretty much skunked. So I made a mental note to improve my approach on these guys next time, and left the colony to try and make the best of the rest of the morning light.

I was a little disappointed after not getting what I wanted from both the magpies and the ground squirrels, so I tried to find some of the Bighorn Sheep. This time, I didn't see any rams from the road, but I remembered a mesa where the sheep had fed before. From the tracks and other signs I saw there, it was used frequently. So I climbed up the rocky slope and sure enough there were a pair of rams up there. These rams were faily young, but pretty cooperative.

In fact, the two sheep pretty much ignored me. They spent most of the time grazing. A picture of sheep with its head down isn't really very exciting though. As they grazed they moved across the mesa. They got to a place where the sun was in a bad direction. I tried to get around them, but it required passing a sheer vertical face of rock. The light was starting to get very contrasty and I had gotten some nice shots off so I was certainly satisfied.