Black-Tailed Prairie Dog Picture of the Day: Grasslands

Grasslands National Park, Canada: Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs are amazingly agile creatures. I love watching them stand up and balance on their tails to see what’s going on. This little guy was playing on the road, then ran back to the closest burrow when our car approached. There he stopped, turned and stood up to watch us for a minute before skittering out of sight. 

Black-Tailed Prairie Dog, Grasslands National Park.  c SB 

What are these? Black-tailed Prairie Dogs  

Location: Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan  

Photo dates: Late June and late July, 2011. 

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Black-tailed Prairie Dogs at Grasslands: Late July

Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada: The Black-tailed Prairie Dog colonies are even more active than they were in early summer. Young prairie dogs play on the mounds and run across the grass and roads.

The purple milk vetch has finished blooming, and their meadows now extend green and brown to the edges of the hill and coulees.

Black-Tailed Prairie Dog at Grasslands © SB 

This prairie dog below looks familiar to me... I think I caught him last month, too. (Or maybe all black-tailed prairie dogs look the same...) 

Black-tailed prairie dog warily watching me... © SB 

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What are these? Black-tailed Prairie Dogs  

Location: Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan  

Photo dates: Late June and late July, 2011. 

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Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs: Grasslands Park

Black-tailed prairie dog, with purple milk vetch. © SB 

Grasslands National Park: Above the rush of wind, high chirping across grass. The Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs warn of intruders to the tune of anxious birds or creaking rail fences. Like gophers*, they stand on hind legs for a better view, but prairie dogs are taller, plumper than Richardson's Ground Squirrels — perhaps three times the size.  

Prairie dog colony © SB 

From a distance, the prairie dog colony may look destructive — especially in a province which has often offered bounties for their smaller cousin's tails. But here, Parks information says, they are a key part of the grasslands ecosystem.

Up close with purple milk vetch © SB 

And they are cute! Chirping, running, playing, peering at intruders while standing on hind legs. And in early summer, what a picture in milk vetches.

The Ecotour drive through the West Block of the park goes through two large prairie dog colonies. The first is near the north gate, the second, near the south gate, near the signs for the burrowing owls. (The sign, I saw, but not the owls.)

Another park sign, this one about prairie dogs and other park creatures 

Car wheels on a gravel road, the wind and the cheeping of prairie dogs form the soundscape of the video below, taken while driving through Grasslands:

* Yes, we call Richardson's Ground Squirrels "gophers". Perhaps the early settlers in Saskatchewan were confused, or missed their gophers back in England, so gave that name to the tiny skipping prairie creatures, with their flickering tails.  

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What are these? Black-tailed Prairie Dogs  

Location: Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan  

Photo dates: Late June and late July, 2011. 

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