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Squirrel's Eye View
I met this squirrel on the hike up to Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park. He stayed mostly out-of-sight over the edge of the trail, so I knelt down onto the path to get a squirrel's-eye view when he finally did pop up for an instant to check me out. I wanted him to be mostly hidden by the ridge to emphasize that he was coming out of hiding. I also wanted his head to be fully in the clear and was fortunate that he came up to the right of the taller rock to the left, which I could use as a counter-balance in the frame.
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For the pictures below, I’m not sure if these are regular or Cascade golden-mantled ground squirrels, I’m still working on the species identification. But I do know that they are golden-mantled ground squirrels of some sort ;)
This squirrel at the pinnacle of the Pinnacle Peak Trail is one of the most tame squirrels I’ve ever met, probably fed by hikers stopping to eat at the top of the trail as they enjoy the fantastic view of both Mount Rainier and the distant Cascade peaks. As I sat down in the dirt and opened up my bag of snacks for some of my prized dried mango, I felt some very small hands atop my own. I looked down and this little squirrel was constantly looking up at me or down at the bag, trying to grab some food while the bag was open and I was distracted by the beauty before me. This tête-à-tête continued for a while, the little fellow not discouraged at all that I refused to share my bounty.
On the one hand, it’s disappointing to see a creature in such a wild environment be so tame, but on the other it did allow me to enjoy the squirrel at a much closer range than I would have otherwise. I did see some other hikers feed it, but mostly I saw it forage naturally on its own, and it wasn’t overweight so I doubt it was indulging too heavily in tasty treats.
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A Penchant for Beggary
I did eventually shoo the little thief away, not because it was being aggressive, but because its constant movements were kicking fine dirt onto my camera bag and I didn’t want to risk it also getting on my camera gear and gumming up the lenses. I saw many ground squirrels on this trip, even on trails more popular than this one, and even on this trail just a short distance away, yet this is the only one that approached me offering to lighten my load.
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All of these pictures are of a single ground squirrel was busy stuffing its cheeks with seeds from plants beside the Pinnacle Peak Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.
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Sing! Sing! Sing!
It’s Karaoke Night on the Pinnacle Peak Trail!
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I Thought I Knew You
Some of the squirrels I saw on this trip to Mount Rainier didn’t have a strong black line above the white line, only below, but I don’t know how definitive of an ID mark that is. One thing I do know is that they sure are cute!
This one wasn’t too far from the top of the Pinnacle Peak Trail where another ground squirrel was trying to steal my food, but this fellow wasn’t interested in me. It would stand on its hind legs and grab as many seed pods as it could, extract the seeds and stuff them into its already full cheeks, then move nearby and repeat repeat repeat until it must have filled its cheeks and sprinted off to the other side of the hill. |
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Chipmunk or Squirrel?
To the casual observer, a golden-mantled ground squirrel might appear to be part of the chipmunk family given the light-and-dark stripes that run the length of its body, but it is, you might have guessed, a ground squirrel. Even with a quick glance, you can tell the difference as in chipmunks the stripes extend into the face, while in ground squirrels they do not.
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Chipmunk Cheeks
I hesitated with the title of this picture since it is clearly a ground squirrel and not a chipmunk, but I grew up in the east and when at dinner I stuffed my cheeks the way this squirrel has, they told me I had "chipmunk cheeks". Like that was a bad thing.
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