Category Archives: mammals

  What a playful animal is the marmot: Yesterday, I watched two of them playing tag. Apparently, the bigger (male) marmot was it, and was attempting to tag the smaller (female) marmot. The two of them coursed back and forth over the … Continue reading →

  When Derek Kite recently posted some shots of a muskrat grooming, I was alerted to the possibility of sighting one of these large semi-aquatic voles myself (it is not a rat). Today, from behind some shoreline rocks, small waves … Continue reading →

  This is the third year in a row I have used the title: march marmot. But, this is the earliest date, by nearly two weeks. Maybe it is the particularly warm mid March; maybe it is the happenstance of … Continue reading →

  This muskrat was eating some water milfoil fetched from the bottom of the channel. Saving some for later perhaps? Some grooming. Much better.

  Some animals have rather regular habits: Birds turn up at the feeder about the same time each morning; I have seen a beaver swim by at about the same time each evening.  For the second day in a row, … Continue reading →

  Voles do not hibernate. Rather, they spend the winter underground in burrows and forage above ground using a labyrinth of runways built under the snow. When the snow melts, the runways become exposed.   Some vole runways are revealed by receding … Continue reading →