Friday, July 15, 2011

Wyoming Ground Squirrels


When we first arrived at our condo complex in Estes Park Colorado, it didn't take me long to see these chipmunk sized cheeping rodents running everywhere.  Then I started seeing bigger ones.  These little guys turned out to be Wyoming ground squirrels- Urocitellus elegans.   They were everywhere around our complex.  Underneath our condo were several unattached PVC pipes.  My guess is that the complex has decided to live with these squirrels by providing homes for them.  The meadow next door to our condo was riddled with burrows, but I didn't see one in the well manicured lawns where we stayed.  These squirrels must be a horrible pest to the residents of Estes Park, but I found them quite photogenic.

-Tom

3 comments:

  1. Thanks Nicholas. These ground squirrels make fun subjects to photograph- they're really tame.

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  2. We saw these or some very similar ground squirrels elsewhere in Colorado, and I must have spent twenty minutes trying to convince my father that they weren't prairie dogs. :)

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