Creatures Great and Small

You may be somewhat tired of seeing pictures of Buffalo and Prairie Dogs but I find them to be rather fascinating creatures. Photos taken on September 9th and 10th.

A herd of domesticated bison.

This one was getting a little too close for comfort, with only a few strands of barbed wire between it and me! Like cows, they are curious creatures and this one simply wanted to figure out just what I was.

The eye of a buffalo. Their hair looks stiff and wiry but it isn't. Not that I reached in to pet them or anything silly like that – the Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota had a buffalo skin on display that you could touch. It was very soft.

A nearby Prairie Dog Town offered a fine photographic opportunity. He's sounding the alarm to warn others of my presence. Even with the long zoom of the camera, I couldn't get really close. This and the other images below are cropped quite a bit.

I had never seen a prairie dog do this before and almost missed the shot! A nearby sign had a similar image and it said that “Once danger has passed, the prairie dog emits the 'wee-oo' call to notify other members of the colony that everything is okay”. I'm not convinced that is what it was doing as I didn't see very many that were out of their burrows.

Lunchtime!