Cliff Chipmunk 1

A Cliff Chipmunk (Tamias dorsalis) out for it's morning drink from a nearby seep at Brown Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains of Southeastern Arizona.

I found this little guy while resting at a seep on the wilderness trail near the top of Brown Canyon. Several days prior to this I had seen a Coati drinking here and was thinking it would be a good place to hunker down and observe what wildlife came here to drink.

And then this little fellow appeared from under a boulder. He nervously made his way onto this log, traversed it down to the little bit of water that was still here, took a drink, and then spent some time wandering around all points on the log.

He was pretty shy of me at first, but quickly grew used to my presence and movements as I stabilized my position to better photograph him. It was still early morning and the light was not that great, requiring a high ISO and slow shutter speed.

I spent about 15 minutes with him and then headed up the canyon. He was a fun little critter to observe. It wasn't until later, when I was trying to identify him, that I found out how special a sighting I'd had.

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