Chipping away

For a brief, all too brief, time in spring you can be in the woods without being eaten alive or freezing. It comes in late-April and generally disappears in mid-May. Bugs come and ruin everything. But before that I can find some peace and tranquility out there. Until these guys race by that is.

 

Amazing that a creature barely weighing a few ounces manages to make so much noise you’d think a herd of horses was coming through. They are fun to watch though and easy to sneak up on. Most of the time they’re pretty oblivious and will sometimes run right up to me as I am doing yard work or something. Once I was taking macro shots of some flowers, stood up to look at something and one came over, sniffed my camera bag, climbed on my tripod and then left; clearly unimpressed.

 

I can even walk around and come up to them without much fuss. That’s how I got these first few on the base of an oak tree in the yard. We have several colonies of them and because of where the bird feeder is, they can’t get to it directly to empty it out. So I tolerate them and the population regulates itself because we have so many predators, too.

 

These first three are barely cropped at all because I was about 20 feet from the little guy. Other times I just sit in the wooded part of the yard and wait for them to come within range. Usually they are rooting around in the undergrowth looking for food. Sometimes they dig into rotted wood and get pretty dirty –

 

It doesn’t last long though. They groom themselves almost as much as they eat or chase each other. I have video of both so keep going and I’ll post a link to it. So cute.

 

I learned that even though we think of them as vegetarians, they aren’t. Worms, snails, slugs, insects and even bird nestlings can feature in their diets. No wonder they climb trees pretty often.

 

Many of my photos are of this particular chipmunk with the distinctive upside-down U on his nose. He (I think it’s a he) lives in a burrow next to the base of the deck steps and has a particular part of the woods as his territory. There is never a moment of inactivity or stillness it seems. That’s one of the reasons they’re so much fun to film and photograph. Well and there’s the cuteness factor, too.

 

Like pretty much all rodents, these guys don’t hibernate, but stock up on food for the winter. I see them in and out of the burrows all summer, cheeks packed with tasty treats. Of course they put away almost as much as they…put away, but somehow their numbers never seem to plummet so I guess no one starves.

 

Oh and btw, these are Eastern Chipmunks, not Least Chipmunks which we also have, but I don’t know I’ve ever seen. They look similar, but are smaller and seem to be overall lighter in color. But I’ll take what I can get in the yard – they’re fun and great in front of the camera.

So last, but not least, is a 4-minute video I put together with these little guys. Some of the individuals and locations will be familiar, but there’s also a lot of unique footage where I didn’t take any photos. Because of how you have to expose for video v. stills I usually need a variable neutral density filter for the former and it’s a pain to take it off for the latter. If I ever get a dedicated video set up then it will make things easier than with only one camera. Anyway, the film was all shot in 4K in the yard, enjoy!

Click here to go to my hosting site for the film.