Hikers: "Did you see any wildlife?"
Brunis: "We saw some ground squirrels and a ptarmigan family!"
Hikers: (unenthusiastically) "Oh..."
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I lay in ambush covered in mud with a few sprigs of grass stuck in my hat. My quarry was unaware of my presence; or maybe they were just playing along. My sight line was clear, the wind was still. I took carful aim - right between the eyes - and pulled the trigger. Though the shutter of my camera made some noise, it was slight enough that they didn't bother with it. I would get a second shot, it seems.
To my left, one of their lookouts grew nervous. He had definitely seen me move, or maybe heard the rustling sound I made as I repositioned for a better angle on the family. He let out a tentative first squeak, a little unsure of what he was seeing, then bounced up onto a cut tree for a better view. The others froze, as did I. Moments passed with neither side willing to give in. The grass in my face began to itch like a honey badger with chickenpox, but I kept still. Surely I can outlast a bunch of ground squirrels?
Maybe not. A few of them looked my way and slowly crept closer. I had nowhere to hide - any movement would give me away. I aimed right at the bravest one's head. I wasn't going down without at least one good shot of his face. The shutter noise was too much for him - in a flash we was gone, deep underground in their den, with the others close on his hind paws. They were gone, and it was time for me to move along.
Ground squirrels play often. They will chase each other, sneak up on their siblings, and wrestle. They zip through the meadows having memorized every detail of their neighborhood, finding a little flower to munch on here or standing on two legs to get a better view of a strange bird call they heard over there. They will also "talk" to each other, touching noses to communicate whatever little secrets they have to tell.
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Creeping over boulder fields can be tricky. All it takes is a loose rock to tumble or even just slide a little to give you away with a loud crash. I knew there was life in the cracks, and I was determined to find it before it found me. I made my way down slowly and carefully - these little critters would be long gone if I made a mistake. I crouched on a larger rock that seemed sturdy enough and glanced around. There was no movement.
I turned to look back at Dhvani, who had stayed further up the path. It took me a few seconds to understand what I was seeing. She sat on a rock with her feet touching the rock below it, and she was staring straight down. A furry potato was repeatedly leaping up at her feet from the level below that, but couldn't manage to reach her feet. After a few attempts, it scurried off into the rocks.
Of course, if you see a furry potato scurrying over rocks, you should immediately recognize it as a pika. This one seems to have built a map of the talus in its head, and when Dhvani placed her feet in the path it normally took to get home, it ran right into her shoes and tumbled down a level (doesn't say much for their eyesight, does it?). Perhaps confused and unsure how to get back to the path it knew well, it put all of its effort into getting back up an impossible climb for such a little critter. Then, after regaining its senses (and realizing how futile it is for a potato to try climbing up a two-meter high flack rock wall), it found another way to return to its comfort zone.
Their calls are rather recognizable and adorable "MEEP"s, often performed from the tops of larger rocks in the talus, presumably to let the world know they are there. Dhvani desperately wanted a photo of a pika in the middle of its call with its little mouth open. This is much trickier than you might think. They will stand on rocks for minutes without making their call, and when it does happen, it lasts only a split second before they bounce off in a different direction again (sometimes not even finishing their call before jumping away!).
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I woke to the sound of a leprechaun being drawn and quartered. No, that's not right... this was much more shrill. I relaxed my instinctual tiger stance and hazarded a look outside the tent. There it was, staring right at me, motionless. Without warning, its mouth flew open and another round of hideous shrieking nearly knocked me back into the tent. It turned tail and ran right up the nearest tree trunk as if gravity had turned sideways. The red squirrel's angry cry is no joke. You can literally hear it across the campground and it will terrify even the hardiest of ghost hunters. Only the crows can rival these little tree rats in their ability to vex large groups of people.
Chipmunks are like squirrels without the annoying noises. They're also prettier, having a stripe down the back. That is, if stripes are your thing. Both species love humans and it's often easy to get really close to them since they are quite curious and probably expect a handout. Ha!
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The second most boring of all mountain mammals is the marmot. They seem perfectly happy laying in the sun all day, and as soon as they see you, they run with great prejudice to hide in their hole. If you can sneak up to them, however, you might be surprised.
We caught a family having playtime together from far off. A gang of youngsters were rolling around in the grass wrestling like pigs in mud. Though we were far out, we could still make out their vicious snarls and playful leaps. We moved like mud on a driveway, gradually slinking closer to them. Their eyesight must not be great, because they occasionally looked towards us, but seeing that we had stopped moving, they would then continue about their romping. Imagine kittens wrestling each other, but much less gracefully and a whole lot more gruffly than baby felines would. Annoyed with its siblings, one ran off into the brush. Deciding that the game was a lot less fun without the doormat to beat on, the others slowed, then stopped, and finally lumbered back into their dens.
On a particularly windy day, we found a couple of marmots hanging out on the top of a large rock, trying desperately to keep warm. Despite pressing their bodies into pancakes against the rock, their fur blew back on their faces like a 1950's actress' dress over a subway grate. One turned to face the wind, which turned out to be a brilliant move - its fur smoothed out and it was able to relax a little. The other looked interested, but laziness ultimately won out and it set its head down on the rock again. These critters can seem so human sometimes!
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I know most people don't care about the smaller critters on the trail, often walking right by them without much of a care. For some reason, bighorn sheep or caribou grazing in a field seems more interesting to them than the antics of the little guys. This is dedicated to those "invisible ones" of the forest, without which it would be a lot less colorful and perhaps a lot more quiet!
