Quite a few people don’t know this, but black-tailed prairie dogs will whistle sharply and fiercely when they sense danger.
Even fewer people know this, but they do so with the old country-boy trick of placing a blade of grass in a small gap between thumbs pressed together and blowing strongly. It is one of those remarkably useful things that you learn in adolescence, like making fart noises
And so we reveal the mystery of two days back, or at least it should be pretty obvious by now (and might have even been obvious then.) This is Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, definitely one of the more curious geological formations in the US, and a major part of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Now you can finally place that little musical bar that I provided as a hint.
There are radical
Jim didn’t tell me whether this black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) was telling him to keep the noise down, or specifying how tall one had to be to get on the ride, or drying its nails, or doing the Macarena. It might just be gay.
Om my god, I’m in so much trouble now for perpetuating stereotypes about prairie dogs, aren’t I?
I’ll let you figure it out.
Okay, I’ll give you a hint: da da da da daaaaaa…
We’ve left Montana now and have traveled to Wyoming, in a touristy area. You can tell that last bit from the reaction of the locals, in this case a black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) showing its typical response to photographers. Or at least, photographers that aren’t offering Cheetos.
The things that I get up to…
So, knowing roughly where Jim was when he took this shot, I pulled up Google Earth and started poking around to see if I could determine just how far those peaks were. And in the process, realized that I had found the precise location of nearly all of the preceding Montana pics. Yes, even the swing set – mostly because it’s not far removed from the other,
Today’s image, compared against yesterday’s, is a good example of how to approach the same subject in different ways, and a damn strong fartistic composition to boot. Good contrast, good depth, and a great diagonal element to the framing. Switching to monochrome eliminated the upbeat aspect of the blue sky and enhanced the textures, and there’s even the long grass
Whether it’s accurate or not, Jim managed to provide a distinct impression of the area that he visited in Montana with virtually all of the photos he sent along (the flowers notwithstanding.) Despite the sky conditions, you can almost hear the creak of the chains as the swings drifted
I suspect this is the same barn as the one seen two days ago, turned monochromy by Jim being fartsy again – it’s certainly the same kind of (inept) construction. I’m probably going to find out Jim’s father-in-law built this…
And now I have to admit to curiosity over what purpose this building served. First, if it is the same building, then its proximity to the
“And you’re gonna put that saddle on who now?”
It’s subtle, perhaps, but the shorter focal length, or wider angle (same thing,) distorts the proportions enough to make the center horse seem to loom a bit – the head actually looks vertically bigger than the torso. And because of that, the others seem to have the same trait just by facing the same way, even though they’re