Buster’s favorite place to go “birding” is Fairview Wetlands. He loves to make a try for the borrowing varmints
in the grassy area along the trail. He came very close to success today. The time difference recorded on my camera
between these to shots is only three one hundreds of a second! Until today I assumed these varmints were
probably ground squirrels. This is first time I’ve been able to get any kind of
a photo. After studying the photo and
researching in a couple of books I now think they are Western Pocket Gophers.
Gophers and moles can really do lots of damage to urban lawns, but under more natural conditions, their tilling of the soil produces welcome seed beds. Thanks for the link to the Western Pocket Gophers. Lee
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a pocket gopher to me. You were fortunate to actually see one. The mounds are very typical of them. I once sat painting on a log in the Cascades and noticed the seed heads of cone flowers were disappearing in front of my eyes. ... one by one. A pocket gopher was nipping the stems piece by piece and pulling the heads into his hole.
ReplyDeleteYes one very lucky gopher. I remember Clear Lake.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up we lived along the McKenzie river east of Spring field. Pocket gophers were Mom's arch enemies. They would burrow beneath her rows of snap peas and carrots. Once the peas began to set ripe pod, they would pull them into the burrow one by one. We finally got them under a bit of control with pincer traps set into connecting burrows, tunnels
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