I got a wonderful response to my last post. In addition to the comments box I also received
several e-mails. Thanks you.
And so now I shall continue on. I can't help resisting posting another one on
pikas, maybe because they are so much fun to draw!
Oct 5, 2014 Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, USA:
We've dawn busted, i.e. we set the alarm for 5:15 AM and got
going before the first glimpse of dawn.
It's been awhile since we've been out this early .. and all because of
those little pika beasties.
Pikas like cool, so they usually scurry about early and late
in the day. The pika colony we know of
on the slope of Crater Lake goes into shadow long before sunset, but should
have morning light. By leaving home
early we should get to the pikas by 9 AM.
Up there in the high country it'll still be cool for most of the
morning. We're hoping we'll catch the
pikas hard at work cutting and storing their winter food supply. We're heading back to the same spot where we
spotted the badger (see my blog post, "Where are the Pikas?", but we
doubt the badger will still be there.
It's a beautiful fall morning when we arrive. Blue sky, still chilly. I soon hear a far off "wheeze" so I
know pikas are awake. I settle on a rock
to wait and watch ... and wait and watch.
Sunlight pours onto the tumble of rocks where the pikas make their
home. I finally get one far off
photograph, but barely recognizable as even a pika.
After an
hour of rock sitting I decide this isn't a good spot. All too soon it'll be too warm for
pikas. I head down the road and into a
different jumble of rock. Right away I
spot a little guy zipping across the rocks with a long stem of greenery. But he saw me too. More wait and watch.
During the next hour I get one more sighting, a slightly
better opportunity. A pika grabs a big
green frond and scurries up slope with, floating from one boulder to
another. He pauses in a shadow of a
large rock half way up. There he blends
into the shadows, all but the tip of his frond which sparkles bright green in
the sunshine. All too soon is he out of
sight.
Finally I accept that the coolness of the morning has worn
off. Time to head back to Dale. He is interested in lunch, but first a small
wasp catches my eye and soon both of us are trying for a photograph. We've never seen one like this before.
A car pulls up behind ours where we are parked on the
shoulder of the road. Out comes a couple
about thirty years old. They are
fascinated by the rocks, the cliffs, the jumble, the pumice soil. The man climbs from one boulder to another
and finally onto an eight foot tall boulder, all the while carrying on a loud
conversation with his friend. From up
there he spots a furry creature just below. He hollers out, "What's this? It looks like a cross between a mouse and
marmot." Our pika!
We were so patient and quiet ... and he is the one who gets
close to the pika! I'll shout, rock hop,
and bumble my way about next time.
In all honesty there often is merit is not being too
sneaky. Just last week I tried to sneak
from one lodgepole to another to get close to common mergansers resting on a log along the shore line of Diamond Lake. They spooked.
Immediately afterwards a little brown creeper caught my eye and I
concentrated on a family of creepers for the next twenty minutes. Suddenly I realized the mergansers had
returned to their log and I was way closer.
I 'd lost interest in the mergansers and so they chose to not worry
about me. Serendipity.
