{"id":41016,"date":"2016-07-26T05:21:45","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T11:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=41016"},"modified":"2016-07-26T05:31:57","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T11:31:57","slug":"least-weasel-in-utah-could-it-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/26\/least-weasel-in-utah-could-it-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Least Weasel In Utah? Could It Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning I made my “grieving trip” to Antelope Island after the fire. It’s something I knew I had to do but I wasn’t looking forward to my first experience with the devastation so I decided to get it behind me as soon as possible. I was able to see some of the damage from a distance but most of the island won’t be accessible until\u00a0today so I just drove around the north end, talked to a few park personnel and then headed for home.<\/p>\n

I was in a low mood – besides the devastation to the island I’d seen there had been very few birds. I wondered if the smoke had driven many of them off the island, even from areas that hadn’t burned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

1\/1600, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D,<\/em> Canon EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS II USM @ 400 mm, not baited or set up<\/strong><\/p>\n

But along the causeway on my way to the mainland\u00a0this weasel ran across the road in front of me and saved the day. I pulled over and was able to get a few shots of it as it hunted for voles\u00a0among the rocks and vegetation. Typical of weasels it had boundless energy as it hopped and flowed into and out of crevices and it was\u00a0usually partially or completely hidden from my view.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited or set up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Talk about a difficult subject to lock focus on! I have more soft shots of this little\u00a0speed demon than I care to think about. Here the weasel is coming right at me but with that long body only its face is relatively\u00a0sharp.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"long-tailed<\/p>\n

Every weasel I’ve photographed in Utah over the years has been a Long-tailed Weasel like this one from a few years ago at Bear River MBR. Utah has two weasel species – the Long-tailed Weasel and the Short-tailed Weasel.\u00a0Each of them has black-tipped tails in both their summer and (white) winter coats. There’s a third North American weasel species called the Least Weasel but it’s smaller than the other two, it\u00a0doesn’t not have a black-tipped tail <\/em>and it isn’t supposed to be found in Utah.<\/p>\n

I’ve researched\u00a0multiple range maps for Least Weasels and none of them show the show Least Weasel in Utah – the closest seems to be eastern and central Montana.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited or set up<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the weasel I photographed yesterday didn’t have a black-tipped tail! And it seemed a little smaller than most adult weasels I see (though I can’t be sure of that).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited or set up<\/strong><\/p>\n

At any angle this weasel didn’t display a black-tipped tail. Some sources say that Least Weasels can (occasionally)\u00a0have a slightly darker tail-tip but they\u00a0never have\u00a0black there –\u00a0this one had none (both of the previous images are full frame, thus the less than ideal composition).<\/p>\n

I can only think this might be a Least Weasel far out of its “normal” range. The only other explanations I can think of are a genetic anomaly or perhaps some predator bit the tip of its tail off but both seem unlikely.<\/p>\n

Though I’m a retired zoology teacher I’m certainly not a carnivore or mustelid specialist so I’d welcome any and all feedback on the subject from those in the know, one way or another.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"least<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II,<\/em> Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited or set up<\/strong><\/p>\n

PS – here’s a bonus shot that shows\u00a0some of those impressive teeth\u00a0(though the head isn’t particularly sharp). For me this image has a feline look – with that long tail and\u00a0the threatening look with the teeth showing the weasel reminds me a little of a miniscule\u00a0Mountain Lion.<\/p>\n

Yes, I’m easily entertained…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are two weasel species found in Utah. The Least Weasel isn’t supposed to be one of them. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,338,334,8,3036],"tags":[31,178,3037,209,311],"class_list":["post-41016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-weasels","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-hunting","tag-least-weasel","tag-long-tailed-weasel","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/least-weasel-8464-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-aFy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}