wildlife!

[ilanarama]

Last weekend we hiked to Ice Lake and Island Lake, up South Mineral Creek about ten miles west of Silverton, in the San Juan Mountains. We saw about ten marmots, who nicely posed for us, an ermine (we think - it could have been an ordinary weasel, but it was very small, the right size for an ermine) who darted all around the rocks quite close to us, and a fox (who didn't pose very well, so he came out blurry).









Fourteen pictures (thumbnails and links) plus captions on my website.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Man, that is a freaky coloring for a fox. It almost makes me think it's some sort of ape.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

It was also surprisingly large for a fox, not that you can tell the scale from the photo. I would have thought it a small wolf but for the extremely fuzzy fox tail. (Or a coyote, but that's definitely the wrong coloring.)

[painless-j.livejournal.com]

Aww! I've never seen a marmot in RL. And the waesely little thing is cute!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Marmots are fun in RL because they make this cute little squeaking noise. The weaselthing was adorable, it kept running around and darting behind and between the rocks, and I'm amazed the photos came out because I swear it didn't stop moving once!

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Marmots also waddle rather appealingly. There's a whole colony of them here over by the old Expo 67 U.S. pavilion, the Bucky Bubble (http://www.earthstation9.com/Pictures/US_Pavilion_Minirail.jpg). You only have to sit still for a few minutes and you'll see them marmoting about.

That weasel is the cutest damn weasel I've ever seen.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yes! We watched them waddle all over. One of them waddled rather close to us and our snacks, but wasn't bold enough to actually snatch our chocolate bars from under our noses.

[pobig.livejournal.com]

Woo, marmot! A product I worked on was code-named that. The ermine photo is very cool, too.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Marmot is also the name of a brand of outdoors gear! Glad you like.

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Looks like a yeti!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Nah, the yetis hang out across the Animas valley over in the Weminuche Wilderness.

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Hey, have you placed with "google earth" yet?
I was swooping in on Durango this morning ... wondering
where your house was.

I bet you can see the Windom parked somewhere,
if you knew where to look.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

I have played with it - it's cool!

You can see our house. It's near the tennis courts - actually, on the other side of the street from the greenspace park next to the tennis courts.

[bowdlerized.livejournal.com]

Wow, the ermine is realllly cute. Wow.

So far in NYC I have seen nothing more exotic than my stink bug and the subway rats.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

That's what you get for living in NYC!

And I think ermines are way cuter in person than they are in coats.

[arwencordelia.livejournal.com]

Aww! And here I was all excited about seeing bear prints and chipmunks on our hike just this weekend (I even have a half-formed hiking post ready to go, if I ever get time to actually post it).

*Resolves to actually fly out west for a hike one of these days*

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yay hiking post! I'd read it, you know!

Actually, I have seen more bears hiking in the Skyline Drive area than I ever have in Colorado. (But I've seen the most in Alaska.)

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Quality mustelid, there!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

We aim to please. I figure I'd move on from avians. (Although the week before we startled four grouse while hiking. But we didn't get a picture.)

[(Anonymous)]

Weasels become ermines each year in September, a couple weeks after the bucks strip their velvet. When the snows are late you sometimes see them looking like little white posts against the unblanketed ground; only the tip of the tail and those deadly, shining eyes remain black.

Red foxes have wide variation from a pale orange to completely melanistic. They also have an agonized, avian sort of cry that I've heard mostly around the dark of the moon; it's guaranteed to keep you up wondering who death is visiting tonight.

There's no reason why a marmot wouldn't taste good, as they eat a mild vegetarian diet. Perhaps you could report? By the same token, there's no reason why a granolette from Boulder wouldn't taste good too.