“With all things and in all things, we are relatives.” Sioux proverb
A healthy crop of young prairie dog pups. -- Photo by pat Bean
Good Reasons to be Cautious
An adult prairie dog giving me the eagle eye after she shooed all the young ones below. -- Photo by Pat Bean
I don’t often get a chance to see prairie dogs, and even rarer do I get to walk among them.
But that’s the opportunity I had at Texas’ Lake Arrowhead State Park just outside of Wichita Falls.
To get some photographs of them, I left my canine traveling companion, Pepper, in the RV. She loves to chase anything on the ground that moves. So far, robins and butterflies have been her favorite targets, but I’m sure prairie dogs would also be high on her list.
While I keep her in check with a 10-foot retractable leash, I figured her quick dash toward a prairie dog would send them deep in their underground tunnel homes.
All about prairie dogs sign at Lake Arrowhead. -- Photo by Pat Bean
The truth is they didn’t let me get too close before they would dash below, especially since there were babies among them. On my approach an adult would shoo them below and then turn around and give me a chittery war cry while keeping an evil, eagle eye on my movements.
I did, however, manage to snag a few pictures.
I sort of feel I owe prairie dogs an apology. As a reporter I covered the release of rare and endangered black-footed ferrets in the middle of a prairie dog colony in the Browns Park area of Colorado back in the late 1990s.
Prairie dogs are ferrets preferred menu item. They are also on the coyote’s menu as well, and Lake Arrowhead is full of coyotes. Even so, I must say that the prairie dogs numbers don’t seem to have diminished since I last visited the park. Prey usually reproduces quicker and more abundantly than predators.
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Wonderful!!! 🙂
Thanks. it was fun to walk among the prairie dogs.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
Prairie dogs are very cute!
I can’t disagree Willow. Thanks for commenting.
I’ve never seen a prairie dog, so these pics are great! You are having wonderful adventures already and you are just into your trip since getting Pepper – wonderful!
Thanks Barb. And thanks for following my journeys.
They have a very short life span! I was surprised. I wonder if this is due to their being so tasty to predators? ~ Lynda
PS: I was born in Wichita Falls Texas! (Then dad was shipped out two weeks later to March AFB in California, and I have never been back… I think I need to make a trek someday, huh?) 😉
I don’t know if you saw them or not, but I wrote two blogs about Wichita Falls, April 22 and April 23, last year. I wrote about its littlest skyscraper and its waterfall.
I missed them! I will go look for them later today, chores now, fun later!!! Thanks Pat! 🙂
I can’t recall ever seeing prairie dogs in the wild. Then again, I haven’t been in to this part of the country a lot. Interesting apology. 😉 Safe travels.
i walked among them at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and usually see some once or twice every time I head west. They usually plop down in their holes anytime you get close so I have a lot of blurry pictures of them. It was fun to be able to take some decent, although blown up, photos of them at Lake Arrowhead, where I assume they are a bit used to people.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com
🙂
Last week I was walking down Main Street in Cortez, CO and was surprised to hear a prairie dog, I turned around and saw it sticking its head out of a hole in a little patch of vacant land between stores. Not to far from McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Walgreen’s and Walmart.
Interesting. I’ve seen quite a few prairie dogs, but always in remote places. Perhaps they’re taking hints from the coyotes that live among us.
Prairie dogs are so cute. I enjoyed watching them in Colorado, but my son (who was living there at the time) reminded me that the prairie dog is the equivalent of our groundhogs in that they can be a nuisance. I still think prairie dogs are cute (and certainly cuter than our groundhogs!).
I agree, re prairie dogs being cuter than groundhogs. And as to being the nuisance that’s why predators are needed to help keep the environment in check.