Ground Squirrel Dance

Gallery: WildlifePosted July 18, 2010202 views9 comments

Here's another shot from our Malheur trip. These are juvenile Belding's Ground Squirrels playing but it looked like they were practicing ball room dancing to me. The end of April and beginning of May the headquarters lawn at Malheur is covered with these juvenile ground squirrels which make for plenty of fun photo opps. In addition the abundance of ground squirrels attracts predators to the spot. We had a Prairie Falcon and a Red-tailed Hawk hunting in the area. Full frame, taken lying on the lawn.

MkIII 500F4 1/1600 F9 iso 500, evaulative metering -0.3

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Luke Ormand on July 18, 2010 at 1:30 PM

Nate,

The cuteness is off the charts here - I do wish it weren't so centered though

Registered on February 4, 2009, 1093 Posts, 7035 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Schwarz on July 18, 2010 at 2:30 PM

Great catch and title. I think the photo would have been better if the oof area in the foreground was removed.

Registered on November 29, 2006, 236 Posts, 1210 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on July 18, 2010 at 5:48 PM

Great photo, one of my favorite group of animals. I like it just as it is, centered is fine with me that way my old eyes don't have to hunt for the main subject. Also glad to see you spreading your wings and getting into the small mammal area. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Dan Walters on July 18, 2010 at 8:00 PM

Love the interation and the clean background. Look like it could use just a little rotation.

Registered on October 30, 2005, 405 Posts, 3693 Comments

Comment posted by Sandra Hendrikse on July 19, 2010 at 2:46 AM

What a lovely image. The interaction you've captured is great. I like it a lot.

Registered on January 23, 2008, 48 Posts, 769 Comments

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on July 19, 2010 at 8:55 AM

Very-very cute and beautiful, a terrific image very well captured! I believe centered treatment is working well here. I may be temped to clone out white grass blades.
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on July 19, 2010 at 9:17 AM

Hi Nate,

Very cute and with very nicely isolated subjects. I like simple colour palettes like this, so it works well for me. A few too many distracting elements in that background though...(totally kidding - couldn't be much cleaner