Tag: wildlife

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canada general

pine marten

pinemarten
This little beastie was one of a few that’s been trapped around work recently, living in the nice warm buildings. It’s really an American Marten, rather than a Pine Marten, and it was surprisingly placid compared to some of the others that are trapped. Rather than snarling and biting, he just sat there licking the cage.

They’re little omnivores, and according to wikipedia, they catch and eat squirrels (I stand by my belief that Canadian wildlife is much more alarming than Australian wildlife). As well as frogs and fish and fruit and whatever else they can find laying about.

And the random fact I always think of when I see one [SPOILER WARNING]: if you’ve read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, a pine marten is what Lyra’s daemon ends up becoming as his final form.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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canada general

your daily rodent

 

 

One of the noisy pikas from the scramble up the Tower of Babel (the one near Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies, not the one from Babylon). One of the pikas we saw on the way up was carrying a small leafy tree branch, and as it ran across the scree it looked exactly as if it was pretending to be a bush so we wouldn’t notice it. It would have worked perfectly if it wasn’t for the fact pikas are incapable of the sort of slow sneaking movements you need to use to pull off “No honestly, I’m a bush” trick.

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canada general

the wednesday wolf

 

 

This wolf came wandering past the office at work on Wednesday. It seemed fairly unconcerned by any of us, and trotted on its (her?) merry way.

(It’s strangely warm here at the moment, and apparently I’m not longer used to the heat as I’m finding 30oC heat meltingly hot. Nonetheless – today, bike and climbing; tomorrow, bike and scrambling; Sunday, either day of rest or some hiking/scrambling.)

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canada general

an ungulate

I think it’s an elk (rather than a deer or a moose), grazing by the road just outside of Banff, by the Vermilion Lakes.

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general

evil lurking menacing water

Todays random posting is brought to you by a close-up of a waterfall in Dolly Sods Wilderness, part of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.

evil water

Wildlife sighted over the weekend: some Whitetail Deer, a Chipmunk, and a Groundhog. Chipmunks are a lot smaller than I would have thought. Also, they don’t seem to sing in high pitched voices as often as I’d assumed. They do try and steal your food though, and chew through your slackline.