Chipmunks spend most of their lives on the ground, or underground. Unlike squirrels, it’s rare to see them up in a tree, climbing around to find food like this.
If you’re ever going to see a chipmunk foraging above ground, however, autumn is the right time of year. Right now, chipmunks are building up large food storages in their underground burrows so that they have a supply ready for the winter. Unlike other hibernating animals, they live off these food caches instead of stored body fat, and as a result they have to wake up frequently in order to snack!
It’s the end of 2016, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it to be a pretty lousy year. So here are a bunch of humpback whales waving goodbye to 2016 for good!
Humpback whales have individually unique tail markings, which allows biologists (and whale-watching companies!) to identify individual whales in studied populations. The tails can be distinguished by the amount of white, the various scars and variation in bumps and notches along the trailing ridge of the tail.
There are five different whales in this post, and you can tell the middle three apart by their tail markings! (The first photo is of the dorsal side of the tail, so the markings aren’t visible)
Hope you all have a great New Year’s Eve!
Learn more about humpback photo-identification here!
Humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)
Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, off Boston, USA