15 June 2009

The past few mornings have been incredibly still. This makes one thing remarkably horrific: mosquitos. I've run out of bug spray and am being bombarded by at least a thousand, I'm sure. If I stay too long, maybe I'll fall asleep due to blood loss.

I sit, and wait, and wait. The sun is quite high now and nothing, I mean nothing has happened in the realm of the coyote. A glimpse of a Tom, then a doe...but that's all. Orioles alight on the oak branches above and stir up even more mosquitos. If Joe Root did eat them for breakfast, I'm sure he didn't go hungry. 

I finally decide to give up my post, stand, and almost topple over. My entire leg has gone asleep during my four hour sit. Oh, that feels strange. I hobble over to one of the turtle nesting hot spots and peer over the edge: two occupants busily digging away. It is then that I hear a ruckus inside a snag. I'm sure it's a raccoon, but then I see a tail slip out of a crack. Looks like a chipmunk tail at first glance.

As I stand there, a small pointy head peers out of the end of the log. It is unmistakably a weasel. I set up my tripod and make all my adjustments and cross my fingers. I've never had luck with weasels before. He seems busy, as if he's cleaning house. Sawdust is flying out of the crack and the whole snag is shaking under his tiny weight. Just what is going on in there? Then, it all stops and some activity resumes on the ground at the other end of the halfway fallen log. I take my chances and creep around to the other side. Not one, but two Long tailed weasels. One seems to be half playing, half being the lookout, while the other is trying to haul something out of the end of the log. What it is I can't tell until I peer through the viewfinder: a chipmunk. So, it's chipmunk for breakfast today, eh? Not eggs or mosquitos, but chipmunk.  They continue to dart in and out of the hole at the end of the log, and run along the length of it. Images of Rikki Tikki come to mind: and this character fits the bill. 

One is clearly smaller than the other and I strain to remember if there is sexual dimorphism in weasels. It turns out there is, but more than likely this is probably a mother and pup. I am given the opportunity to shift again, and get the action from a third angle. Huh. Next stop, weasel film?