Animals Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Sean Phillips Photography

Baby Gophers

I found a huge family of baby gophers today. They don’t really look all that different from the adults (especially in the pictures) but they really are much smaller. In fact they are less than half the size of a full grown animal, and very cute!

Although commonly known as gophers, these animals are officially called Richardson’s Ground Squirrels. They are often confused with Prairie Dogs, however that is an entirely different species. No matter what they are called they are very fun to watch and extremely photogenic. I have literally made thousands of images of these funny little critters and I’m always happy to make a few more!

Materials of Construction

This is the first Muskrat I’ve come across this spring. It had a mouthful of some building material that it carried right past me and took into latest construction project. These animals are plentiful in the Calgary area and in summer they can often be found sitting on the edge of a slough eating. They are quick to spook though so you need to approach slowly if you want to get close.

Muskrats and Beavers are often confused for each other by the casual observer. Although they are related, and very similar in appearance, there are two major differences that can be used to distinguish between them.

The first difference is the overall size; muskrats are very small and typically only reach the 2 to 4 pound range (1 to 2 kg) while Beavers are much larger and are more typically in the 30 to 90 pound range (14 to 40 kg).

While this massive size difference should be enough to tell the animals apart, the second difference is equally distinctive. While Beavers are well known for having a flattened tail, Muskrats also have flat tails, only theirs are flattened vertically instead of horizontally. To the common observer the Muskrat appears to have a typical round tail as you can normally only see a small part of the tail sticking out of the water while the rat swims.

In Search of Mountain Bluebirds

I took a trip Southwest of Calgary in search of Mountain Bluebirds as they are very common in that part of the city. I really enjoy making images of Bluebirds because they are very curious and they allow their visitors a very close approach. It helps that they are such bright and vibrantly colored birds that they are generally pretty easy to find.

The main reason I decided on this adventure on this particular day was because it was one of those hazy, gray, high overcast days where it’s really bright out, but you never actually see the sun. It was the perfect kind of day to make images of birds on or near the ground, and in particular for brightly colored birds like Bluebirds. And conversely it would have been a pretty bad day for making scenic landscape images or images of birds in flight (or even perched high in a tree) against a white background. I had heard many reports that the Bluebirds were already back in the area, so I packed up and headed out to a favorite location that I visited several times last year.

I found several pairs of bluebirds within minutes of my arrival in the area and I had several opportunities to make good images of both males and females. As is typical for many species of birds, male bluebirds are much brighter and more vibrant than the females.

Even though I found my intended target right away, my success didn’t last long and I found only a few more Bluebirds during the rest of the trip. I found one final pair just as I had decided to head for home.

I had a bit of a surprise when I found a Greater Yellowlegs in the glassy waters of a slough. This is another species that I had heard were back in the area, but this was the first that I’ve seen this season. They are very commonly found throughout the region later in the season, but there aren’t many around this early in the spring migration. This one posed very nicely for me and I made some of the best images I have of these elegant birds.

I saw several herds of Mule Deer in the farm fields while I was searching for Bluebirds. Mulies seem to be more common to the west of the city than to the east, and I haven’t been able to get this close to them very often. I have lots of images of White-tailed Deer, which thrive in the flat praire farmland to the east of the city, but I don’t have very many of Mule Deer. This solitary deer had become separated from a fairly large herd of animals that were further off in the same field. The rest of the deer wandered away when I stopped to watch, but this one kept eating and only occasionally looked up at me.

After the rest of the herd had crossed the road and disappeared into the brush, this one also decided that it should be on its way. I was lucky enough to make some very cool images of it jumping the fences on both sides of the road. All in all it was a great day to be outside!

The Biggest Frog in the World!

Of course this is not actually the biggest frog in the world, not even close really, but it really was big!

I was out for a paddle around the pools in the Bonnechere River below my Wife’s family cottage last summer when I came across this huge frog. This incredible creature just sat there while the canoe slid closer and closer. I almost sideswiped it before I was able to gently backpaddle away, and he never moved at all. I was even able to paddle all the way back to the cottage to get my wife and daughter to take them out for a look. He stayed right there the whole time, and only jumped away after we backed away from him on the second visit…

Interestingly, I posted this image on Flickr last summer (with the same caption) and it has long since become my most popular image there. Until recently I had thought that it was just a really nice picture. However, after reviewing some of the stats that Flickr makes available for images posted to the site, I now realize that it gets hits from search engines all over the world from people who are honestly searching for (shockingly) pictures of the largest species of frog in the world.

I did a quick Google search myself to and quickly found out that the real answer is the Goliath Frog. I don’t have any pictures of Goliaths, but I do have several other nice images of reptiles, including Green Frogs and Tree Frogs that I’ve made near the cottage over the last couple of summers.

The cottage is on the Bonnechere River in Ontario and is one of my favorite places to relax, wander, and make images. I’ve been lucky enough to make some of my best and most popular images while there. Enjoy!

“Reptiles” – Images are available for purchase at Photoshelter

Happy Easter!

I hope the Easter Bunny helps make your Easter Weekend great!

These are all images of some of the White-tailed Jackrabbits that run wild (literally) around this part of Alberta. These little critters are pretty confused at this time of year and they don’t know whether they should be white or brown, and so sometimes they’re both. We’ve had some beautiful spring weather lately and so I expect that they will all be morphing into their brown summer fur very soon!