Adult Yellow-bellied Marmot in the Wasatch Mountains – Nikon D500, f7.1, 1/1250, ISO 500, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light
Three days ago I saw and photographed my first of the year Yellow-bellied Marmot in East Canyon of the Wasatch Mountains. The marmot wasn’t in the most beautiful setting, it was just off to the side of the road, but I enjoyed seeing and photographing it anyway. I’ve waited all winter long to see them again after all.
There were two marmots in the area but one of them dove into the burrow rather quickly and did not come up to the surface again while I photographed the one who stayed above the ground. At first I didn’t care for this photo at all but the more I looked at it the more I liked it.
I hope to have many more opportunities to photograph adult Yellow-bellied Marmots and their young this year. That is if the threat of the coronavirus doesn’t restrict my traveling to the wild places where I find these marmots and if the ground here in northern Utah stops shaking, rocking and rolling.
After I published my post yesterday morning I was sitting at my desk when at 7:09 am the house, my desk, the floor, and the ground started to rocking around. There was a loud groaning noise and the house creaked. It took a split second to realize that we were having an earthquake here in the Salt Lake City area. The earthquake registered 5.7 on the Richter scale and the epicenter was a little more than 10 miles from where I live in the suburb of Murray. People as far away as Wyoming felt that first quake.
Earthquake Map – 24 hour period showing the main quake and aftershocks
The Salt Lake City International Airport was even closer and did sustain some damage which closed the airport for a large portion of the day. The town of Magna sustained the most damage but downtown Salt Lake City and the surrounding communities did as well. As I write this there hasn’t been an aftershock since 1:13 am and it registered 1.2 on the Richter scale.
Needless to say everyone was on edge yesterday after that first huge jolt. More information on the quake can be found here and here.
You just never know what will shake up the plans you had for a day.
Life is good.
Mia
Click here to see more of my Yellow-bellied Marmot photos plus facts and information about this species.
Dear Mia, you need not worry about your travel getting restricted, as you head away from civilization, not towards it, in your quest for birds, fauna and flora. In the words of Startrek, you go where no man has gone before …… and they are not likely to follow you!
Stay safe – from this and all the other disasters as they unfold.
When people use the phrase ‘yellow bellied’ as a negative description they have got it so very wrong.
This is a beautiful and charming beast – and I hope you see a lot more of them.
soon.
That’s a pretty sizable shaker, especially if you’re close to the epicenter and if the focus was near the surface too. Glad you’re all OK and that the damage seems to be to things rather than to people.
Hope you get to see these marmots again. I like the effect of the soil on this one’s fur — it looks a little like glitter to me.
I grew up in the New Madrid fault zone in Southern Missouri. Periodically the ground would move and things would fall out of cabinets and groceries off store shelves. I have always worried about the next big one. The last big one was in 1811-12. The Mississippi River ran backward and an entire lake was formed in Kentucky. See Reelfoot Lake.
So hold on and hope it’s over!
Do you usually have tremors in your area or is this something totally new? Whether you are “used to” that or not, that would be scary! I like the sun on the front of the marmot, hope it wasn’t too shook up, but at least it has the equipment to dig itself out.
Jane, I live in a area with faults so earthquakes are not unexpected but there have only been a few minor ones since I moved to Utah almost 11 years ago, nothing like the one yesterday where the whole house was moving around and the floor felt like a trampoline. The marmot is better prepared than I am to dig itself out! 🙂
Glad you’re OK. The earthquake was probably me shaking before my first morning coffee!😒. Stay safe and I might add that you are one heck of a great photographer!
Thank you Ian for your kind words and you made me laugh with your comment about you shaking before coffee.