Mammals
Housekeeping
Botta's Pocket Gopher, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
What a lucky shot! This is the only time I've seen a resident of the many many gopher holes scattered about the refuge.
Lost in Thought
Pronghorn Antelope, Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Ouray UT
Portrait of an old timer, lost in thought, waiting patiently for me to finish photographing him at the entrance to the refuge. Thanks guy!
Pronghorn Antelope, a Portrait
Pronghorn Antelope, Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Ouray UT
Another portrait of the old timer waiting patiently for me to finish photographing him at the entrance to the refuge.
Woody, a Portrait
Woodchuck, Red Rock, East Chatham NY
Woody, fresh vegetable lover at heart.
Catchin' Some Rays - Sunrise at the Bosque
Bobcat, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
I’m not sure what this Bobcat can see through the brush but off to the right is a pond full of overnighting Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese watched in anticipation by a full complement of photographers. I’d like to think the cat was entertained by the scene.
HEADS UP!!
Snow Geese and Coyote, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
These geese are alert but they don’t seem too too worried that old three-legged coyote is going to snatch a meal this morning. The coyote isn’t as close to them as my telephoto lens might indicate.
Adolescence
Young White-tailed Buck, Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, Jet OK
I met this young buck and its companions out on the trail where we spent a few minutes checking each other out.
Horsefeathers
Wild Horse at Cold Creek NV
On reflection.
Nobody Knows What the Nose Knows
Wild Horse at Cold Creek NV
This is a phrase unkindly used in the presence of a particularly well endowed fellow student at college. I wonder if he remembers...
Addenda to Photos
Housekeeping
Botta's Pocket Gopher, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
December 4, 2013
Botta's Pocket Gopher
Botta's pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae) is a pocket gopher native to western North America. It is also known in some areas as valley pocket gopher, particularly in California. Both the specific and common names of this species honor Paul-Émile Botta, a naturalist and archaeologist who collected mammals in California in 1827 and 1828.
Botta's pocket gopher is a medium-sized gopher, with adults reaching a length of 18 to 27 cm (7.1 to 10.6 in), including a tail of 5 to 6 cm (2.0 to 2.4 in). Males are larger, with a weight of 160–250 g (5.6–8.8 oz), compared with 120–200 g (4.2–7.1 oz) in the females. Male pocket gophers are widely believed to continue growing throughout their life. However, size variation would indicate that some males are predisposed to be larger than others, and the largest male may not be the oldest. Coloration is highly variable, and has been used to help distinguish some of the many subspecies; it may also change over the course of a year as the animals molt. Both albino and melanistic individuals have also been reported. However, Botta's gopher generally lacks the black stripe down the middle of the back found in the closely related southern pocket gopher, a feature that may be used to tell the two species apart where they live in the same area.
Wikipedia: Botta's Pocket Gopher
Lost in Thought
Pronghorn Antelope, Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Ouray UT
April 29, 2022
Pronghorn Antelope, a Portrait
Pronghorn Antelope, Ouray National Wildlife Refuge, Ouray UT
April 29, 2022
Pronghorn
The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American antelope, prong buck, speed goat, pronghorn antelope, prairie antelope, or simply antelope because it closely resembles the antelopes of the Old World and fills a similar ecological niche due to parallel evolution. It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae.
During the Pleistocene epoch, about 11 other antilocaprid species existed in North America. Three other genera (Capromeryx, Stockoceros and Tetrameryx) existed when humans entered North America but are now extinct.
As a member of the superfamily Giraffoidea, the pronghorn's closest living relatives are the giraffe and okapi. The Giraffoidea are in turn members of the infraorder Pecora, making pronghorns more distant relatives of the Cervidae (deer) and Bovidae (cattle, goats, sheep, antelopes, and gazelles), among others.
The pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, with running speeds of up to 55 miles per hour (89 km/h). It is the symbol of the American Society of Mammalogists.
Wikipedia: PronghornOuray National Wildlife Refuge
Ouray National Wildlife Refuge (also called Ouray National Waterfowl Refuge) is a wildlife refuge in central Uintah County, Utah in the northeastern part of the state. It is part of the National Wildlife Refuge system, located two miles northeast of the village of Ouray, 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the town of Randlett, and 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Vernal.
Established in 1960, it straddles the Green River for 12 miles (19 km), and covers 11,987 acres (48.51 km2). A portion of the refuge (3,800 acres [1,500 ha]) is leased from the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation. The refuge was created for the use of both local and migratory birds, and with funds provided by the sale of Federal Duck Stamps.
The site of the refuge also holds the Ouray National Fish Hatchery, which was established in 1996 to help hatch razorback suckers, humpback chubs, Colorado pikeminnows and Bonytail chubs.
Wikipedia: Ouray National Wildlife Refuge
Woody, a Portrait
Woodchuck, Red Rock, East Chatham NY
June 16, 2022
Groundhog
The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as a woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. The groundhog is a lowland creature of North America; it is found through much of the Eastern United States, across Canada and into Alaska. It was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.
The groundhog is also referred to as a chuck, wood-shock, groundpig, whistlepig, whistler, thickwood badger, Canada marmot, monax, moonack, weenusk, red monk, land beaver, and, among French Canadians in eastern Canada, siffleux. The name "thickwood badger" was given in the Northwest to distinguish the animal from the prairie badger. Monax (Móonack) is an Algonquian name of the woodchuck, which means "digger" (cf. Lenape monachgeu). Young groundhogs may be called chucklings.
The groundhog, being a lowland animal, is exceptional among marmots. Other marmots, such as the yellow-bellied and hoary marmots, live in rocky and mountainous areas. Groundhogs play an important role maintaining healthy soil in woodland and plain areas. The groundhog is considered a crucial habitat engineer. Groundhogs are considered the most solitary of the marmot species. They live in aggregations, and their social organization also varies across populations. Groundhogs do not form stable, long-term pair-bonds, and during mating season male-female interactions are limited to copulation. In Ohio, adult males and females associate with each other throughout the year and often from year to year. Groundhogs are an extremely intelligent animal forming complex social networks, able to understand social behavior, form kinship with their young, understand and communicate threats through whistling, and work cooperatively to solve tasks such as burrowing.
Wikipedia: Groundhog
Catchin' Some Rays - Sunrise at the Bosque
Bobcat, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
January 6, 2015
Bobcat
The bobcat (Lynx rufus), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2002, due to its wide distribution and large population. Although it has been hunted extensively both for sport and fur, populations have proven stable, though declining in some areas.
It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby (or "bobbed") tail, from which it derives its name. It reaches a total length (including the tail) of up to 125 cm (50 in). It is an adaptable predator inhabiting wooded areas, semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its original range, but populations are vulnerable to extirpation by coyotes and domestic animals. Though the bobcat prefers rabbits and hares, it hunts insects, chickens, geese and other birds, small rodents, and deer. Prey selection depends on location and habitat, season, and abundance. Like most cats, the bobcat is territorial and largely solitary, although with some overlap in home ranges. It uses several methods to mark its territorial boundaries, including claw marks and deposits of urine or feces. The bobcat breeds from winter into spring and has a gestation period of about two months.
Two subspecies are recognized: one east of the Great Plains, and the other west of the Great Plains. It is featured in some stories of the indigenous peoples of North and Central America, and in the folklore of European-descended inhabitants of the Americas.
Wikipedia: Bobcat
HEADS UP!!
Snow Geese and Coyote, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM
January 29, 2015
Adolescence
Young White-tailed Buck, Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge, Jet OK
October 4, 2014
Horsefeathers
Wild Horse at Cold Creek NV
October 22, 2014
Nobody Knows What the Nose Knows
Wild Horse at Cold Creek NV
October 22, 2014
Meet the Cold Creek herd that calls Return to Freedom home...
Nearly 400 wild horses and burros roamed in the Spring Mountains near the small mountain village of Cold Creek, Nevada, only 40 minutes north of the bustling Las Vegas Strip. This is part of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)‘s Wheeler Pass Herd Management Area (HMA).
These horses are the descendants of escapees from the 1800s horse trade, horses apparently abandoned by Native Americans, settlers coming to the Las Vegas valley, ranchers, prospectors that originally mined in this region and Native American tribes, and turned loose in the mountains and the valleys of Southern Nevada. Later, ranchers also lost more horses to the wild bands and so those bloodlines have been mixed. The horses are relatively small, but very hardy and have now been habituated to humans by grazing alongside the highway.
Return to Freedom, Wild Horse Conservation