This is probably the hardest wildlife photography project I’m actively working on. The goal: photography an American Pika (or any pika, really) on a snowy rock, with snowy mountains in the background. Three attempts in, I’ve managed the pika, the snowy rock, but not the background.
I wasn’t expecting to get this opportunity. The roads into the Sierra closed for the winter after a storm in early November, so I figured I’d have to wait until the beginning of next winter to try again. Then a month went by without snow, and eventually Caltrans plowed and re-opened the roads. Terrible news for skiers, people whose livelihood depends on skiing, and the California snowpack, but a bonus opportunity for me to get into the mountains over the weekend.
Photographing pikas in the snow is really hard! They were out and about, but I’d typically see them come out, call a few times, and then retreat back under the talus for the rest of the day. Once I identified a rock they could access from under the snow, it was already too late. Maybe the pika would emerge onto that rock again in a day or two, but I only had a day worth of photography.
Still, this is a better photo than my last attempt, where I had a postage-stamp crop just to get a small in frame pika. It’s not the sharpest photo, but it is an American Pika hanging out on a rock in the snow. And, it might truly be my last opportunity for the season, as a series of storms are set to come through in last weeks of December, which will hopefully start to build up the snowpack.
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