As much as she loves charismatic bears and majestic moose, Cat Wood finds herself drawn to Wyoming’s myriad smaller creatures. Many are downright cute, and sometimes just goofy.
“One of my things is that I like the idea of documenting and just appreciating every animal in the ecosystem,” said Wood, a wildlife biologist and budding professional photographer from Jackson. “They’re all important. I think the little ones are definitely overlooked, but they can be a lot of fun.”
Despite their small stature, it still takes a lot of attention to detail to find a subject, and then a lot of patience. Sometimes, in the winter while she’s waiting for a shot, her shutter finger will freeze to the button: “I just let it freeze so I can still take a picture,” Wood said.
Her patience and numb fingers have paid off. Two of her photos were included in Wyoming Wildlife Magazine’s 56th annual wildlife photography issue as honorable mentions — no small feat for a contest that drew 2,700 submissions from 500 photographers.
The biggest challenge, Wood said, is finding the animals, then waiting. And waiting. But it helps to know a little something about the animal you want to photograph.
When on the hunt for a pika, Wood hikes to where there’s good talus piles and listens for the critters’ telltale high-pitch chirp. Last year, she found a particularly sweet spot filled with chirping pika scurrying about — but she had to return several times before finally getting the shot included in this year’s magazine contest.
“It takes a lot of time to figure out their patterns and what they’re doing. Pika, specifically, are very habitual. If you find one, it’s not going to leave the area that it lives in.”
One day, she chose a spot to get comfortable and watch. Eventually, one particular pika chose to carry on with the business of collecting branches to fortify its haystack, traversing the same route not far from Wood. The pika kept jumping off a particular rock on his route, and that’s when Wood snapped the shot.
“I got lucky that he was showing off and jumping around. They kind of have a cute way of going about it.”
Her second honorable-mention photo, the curious red fox, took a couple of years.
It’s hard to find foxes that will get comfortable and relaxed while a person is nearby, Wood explained. But foxes, after all, are curious — especially pups. She knew of a den, so she parked herself and waited — for hours. She kept her distance. But, eventually, the young foxes began to approach her.
“They came right up to me. And so I have some pictures of their faces and stuff,” Wood said. “But I really like that one, because he kind of just stopped. It felt like he was just pondering the tree, and it made me wonder, ‘What is he thinking?'”
When it comes to wildlife photography, especially in Wyoming, it’s hard to deny the nobility of a grizzly, the imposing dignity of a grey wolf, or the unlikely grace of a lanky trumpeter swan about to lift off. “We try to showcase a wide variety of species,” Wyoming Wildlife Magazine Creative Director Patrick Owen said. And with thousands of submissions, “It’s hard to choose.”
But it’s no surprise, Owen said, that the annual wildlife photography contest issue is one of the magazine’s most popular editions each year. The magazine is celebrating its 90th year in production.
“I think it inspires people to get out into the wild and appreciate the beautiful wildlife and scenery we have all across the state.”
Congratulations, Cat. I always look forward to the Wyoming Wildlife photo edition every February. Finding it in my mailbox is one of the highlights of every winter for me. All of the photos are absolutely incredible.
The American pika is among the many reasons I’ve cherished quiet hikes into Wyoming’s high country. The baby-like cries are certainly indelible, and it’s so fun to watch from a distance as they gather foodstuffs for winter, as eloquently captured in that photo by Cat Wood. But the American pika, as noted in a post by Kim Viner, is being threatened by warming temperatures. And I’ve often wondered if the noise of snowmobiles greatly disturbs their winter naps. I did a quick online search and didn’t come up with anything concrete. But that would certainly make for a great graduate research project by at student/faculty team at UW or elsewhere.
Pikas – best critters ever in the high mountains. Sadly, studies at Rocky Mountain National Park shows that increasing temperatures at high elevation is causing their numbers to diminish.