2016—Prairie “Puppy”

We’re back in Oklahoma.  The storms have dissipated and the skies are blue and almost cloudless.  Our storm chasing is over for this trip.  We drove 529 miles on Monday from Uvalde, Texas to Lawton, Oklahoma.  When we arrived in Lawton, OK about 6:30PM we drove to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge for sunset photos.  As we drove through the refuge, home to herds of bison and longhorns , we came across some prairie dog colonies.  The prairie dogs seemed quite undisturbed by human presence as they hopped around the meadow and to the edge of the parking lot to forage on the grasses, looking at us curiously, then ignoring us completely.  One particularly shy prairie puppy (?) whose burrow was dug at the edge of the asphalt, kept poking his head out, looking around, and disappearing down the hole, unable to gather the courage to emerge from the safety of his burrow. That went on the entire 15 minutes of our visit.  I captured him during one of his braver moments.