Black Hills Prairie Dogs, 2003

October, 2003 (The Black Hills, South Dakota) -- I must admit, there was some sporadic grumbling when we set off to photograph prairie dogs. I mean, here we are, in the Black Hills, big game everywhere, and we're going to photograph PRAIRIE DOGS? Well, let me tell you, these charming little guys are a barrel of entertainment, very endearing yet absolutely hilarious! We went back to the "town" several times.

Gearhead Notes: Prairie dogs present the photographer with a smallish subject at a varying distances, so a versatile zoom is the order of the day. In my case, I went the AF VR-Nikkor 80-400 1:4.5-5.6D route with, of course, my Nikon D1H. A good thing to remember when visiting Dog City is that these critters have a serious flea thing going, so if you happen to encounter a loud and intoxicated tourist with a disposable camera crawling on his stomach through the dog dirt in an effort to snag that postcard prairie dog snapshot for the little lady's scrapbook, you might want to mention that to him. Or her. Or not.

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