Foto Friday: Pika Gathering Food for Winter

I took this up in Rocky Mountain National Park, a few years back. The pika had a mouthful of something green and wasn’t stopping to acknowledge me or anything else.

Pikas are one of those animals you might walk right past if you don’t know to look for them. They’re small (about the size of a large hamster) and they live up in the talus, usually at or near treeline, tucked into the spaces between rocks. The way you find them is by sound. They make a sharp, high-pitched call that echoes off the boulders and doesn’t sound like it’s coming from something that small. I’ve heard one, started scanning, and eventually found it six feet away, watching me.

Pikas don’t hibernate. Starting in midsummer, they spend their days gathering plants: grasses, wildflowers, whatever’s available, carrying loads back to spots under the rocks and leaving the vegetation to dry. By fall they’ll have stashed enough to survive the entire winter under the snowpack. This one was in the middle of that process.

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