Chipmunk vs. Ground Squirrel

Mtn Gramma wrote: It's called an Abert's squirrel.

correct

Local_Historian wrote: pacamom - prairie dogs. Yes, we do indeed have some up here. There's a trio who loves to play in the road near the Bailey library.

Interesting. I have seen gophers up here but full size prairie dogs I see only around Denver elevation and they are much bigger than the gophers. One of them beat up my sister's cat.

The next big question is what's the difference between a prairie dog and a marmot?

Genus?

pacamom wrote: (The ground squirrel up there at the top of this thread is a golden mantled ground squirrel. As opposed to a 13 line ground sq. )

I think what I have in addition to the two in the photo are Richardson's ground squirrel. Bigger than the other two but not as big as a prairie dog. And it doesn't have the big belly of a prairie dog.

I also have one of these that visits the pond every day.

That is a cool picture, you have created such a cool little paradise around you water feature(pond)

Running water attracts wildlife. You should see the birds that show up.

Yep - the prairie dogs and all the squirrels are smaller up here - less access to garbage cans and trash. Denver squirrels are huge - had one in our yard that was bigger than a large cat when I lived down near Old Elitches after high school.

Marmots look a lot more like a beaver - IMO - and can be HUGE.