Fun Friday: Talk About a Burrow!

While photographing Mountain Goats in the rocky landscape of Glacier NP, an amusing Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) ran about the snow slope and ended up at his “burrow”, which was actually a hole he had dug into the deep snow, just to get to his burrow! Glacier NP received a heavy snowstorm in late June, as the park employees were busy clearing the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This late snow caused several avalanches and rock slides, resulting in a late opening of the road. It apparently also required this little marmot to do some additional “landscaping” around his burrow! Here are some images of the marmot and his “hole in the snow”:

Hoary Marmot in the snow

Hoary Marmot running in snow

Hoary Marmot at the snow entrance to his burrow

Hoary Marmot at the snow entrance to his burrow

I don’t know how deep his snowy entrance is, but from the looks of the images, at least 3 feet!

Photographic Equipment Used:

  • Canon 7D body (first 3 images) and Canon 5D Mark 3 (last image)
  • Canon EF100-400mm, f/4.5-f/5.6 IS lens
  • Handheld, with IS “On”
  • ISO 250 (top 3 images) and ISO 1250 (last image)
  • Aperture f/5.6 to f/8
  • Shutter 1/1000 sec. to 1/3200 sec.

 

 

Posted in Fun Friday Post, Mammals, Nature Photography, Travel Photography
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .
Permalink bookmark.
Follow comments: RSS feed for this post.
Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment.