Glacier Animal Identification III

Seeing as it is Easter time, I thought the next animal to be highlighted in our series would be the Pika. In the same order as rabbits, these little mountain fur balls industriously chop and dry hay during the warm months, then stow it in the talus slopes they call home. In the winter they nibble on their hay and I suppose catch up on their reading. While hiking in Glacier, you will hear their distinctive chirp long before seeing one. A sound clip of their call can be found here. We caught up with the fellow pictured here while hiking the Highline Trail from Logan Pass headed to the Granite Park Chalet. It only stood still for one photo, then scurried off. We did see some of its drying hay bales, but I didn't take any pictures of those :(.

The full picture is available here.

Glacier Animal Identification II

Continuing with the animals we have identified in Glacier, we have deer. The first time we went to Glacier we were totally amazed by the exciting creatures unique to the alpine habitat. We had just spent the day with mountain goats wandering around mere feet from us and were about to head down from Logan Pass when we were asked by a couple to take their picture. They seemed excited to be in the park and they lady told us that they had just "seen a deer from their car".  A whole live deer? from your car!?! They have those here? No, no, I just smiled my head and nodded wondering what her reaction would be to a smiling mountain goat walking the trail with her (hopefully they did eventually get out of their car). All that to say, yes, they are just deer, but deer are still really cool to see.

First we have the mule deer (at least we are pretty sure that's what it is). Apparently they like to patrol the trails in the summer.

 

Back up the same trail we encountered an antler-adorned whitetail deer.

 

The whitetail has a much different color and thicker coat in the winter.

 

They are clearly named by the very whitetail which they flare as an alarm when startled.

 

In the last picture the lookout deer (we are guessing the mother) decided we were a danger (even though there was a fast flowing creek between us). The child deer was seemingly not responding quickly enough, causing this response from the mother: