The critters of Idaho

I was fortunate to be able to see a few live critters while I was visiting Idaho.

The first one I saw was something my daughter had talked about ever since she moved out there last year and there just happened to be one in their back yard the afternoon I arrived.  This little guy is what they call a Whistle Pig due to the sound it makes which is a high pitched whistling sound . If she had not told me about this, and if I had only heard the sound and not seen the source, I never would have thought it came from an animal.  I saw these little guys running all over the base.  They are kind of cute, but they kind of remind me of rats when they run and again, if my daughter had not told me about them, I would have thought it was a rat of some sort , at least from far away.

On a side note, right before I went out there, my daughter sent me an article telling how a whistle pig in Boise had tested positive for the plague.  So every I saw one, that's what I thought about.  :-)

This next one is a bad picture, blurry, but it is the only one I have of the little chipmunk who was scampering around at the Craters of the Moon park , so I have to post his picture in spite of the blurriness.

I think this next critter is in the same family as the whistle pig, only he was quite a bit bigger than the ones on base. I think they are all actually groundhogs, or marmots according to wikipedia lol.  I don't know though. Maybe some of you western people can tell me :-)  ......or some of you eastern or northern or southern folks for that matter.  Anyone who is smarter than me might know !
Sorry for the quality of this picture. He was far off and quite lively so it was hard to get a shot of him.

Lots of pigeons on a cliff. I had to zoom in to get them and again, the quality is not so great. All these animals kept their distance from me !!

This robin co-operated and posed for a second. I only see robins in early spring here where I live so it was nice to see one in June

And then I find this little guy who decided he would pose for me, unlike his cousin I saw earlier in the day.

We have plenty of lizards here in Florida, but not one of these. He was hard to capture too because he didn't sit still for long. I got several blurry shots before I finally got this not quite as blurry shot.

Hidden away on the side of the mountain was this little sweetheart. I almost didn't see her but when I did, I was glad I had my Canon ready because I would have had to change lenses with the Nikon and she may have left before I could do that.  And yes, I had both cameras on me, but the Canon has the built in zoom .

Everyone kept telling me they had tons of rattlesnakes , but I never saw nor heard one, thank goodness.

The one critter I wanted to see was an antelope, and I did get to see some .  The first one ran across the highway in front of us so fast I caught just a brief glimpse of him.  The next day we were again travelling down the highway and I was of course , looking out the window to my right, when my son in law says , "there's a whole herd of antelope over there" in the field.  Of course they were on the left, so by the time I turned to see them all I saw was a herd of antelope butts off in the distance, because they run fast and we were going the opposite way at 80 mph !  Finally on the third day, I got to see an antelope who was not running .  Unfortunately it was lying on the side of I-84 between Boise and Meridian and it had been run over and even worse, it was only the front half of the antelope. I have no idea where the rest of him was :-(

So there you have it, all the critters I got to see in Idaho. I also saw several other birds, but didn't have my camera with me. One bird I really liked was a big black bird with some white feathers also. I don't know what kind of bird it was , but he was quite unusual.  I also saw a lizard with a blue tail, again, I did not have the camera.  And of course I saw some dragonflies and butterflies and other insects.

Maybe next time I go, I will get a picture of an antelope :-)