Put simply, it kicked my ass and I enjoyed every moment of it! The Long-tailed Weasel is not a critter you see everyday. While very common, they are very illusive, secretive and simply put, greased lightning! They do nothing slowly but what always seems like panic in motion. The photo above in all honesty really visually describes the life and times of a Long-tailed Weasel. And it’s cool!
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Finding one is only part of the HUGE challenge of photographing them. We were at our very special location when looking at a Mountain Cottontail, I saw this weasel pop out of nowhere behind it. We were just scouting for the moment so had no cameras, having just literally gotten out of our vehicles. Sharon and I both saw it at the same time and in jaw dropping stance, watched as the weasel went ballistic running over this fallen log. We watched for a few minutes and then it occurred to me that it wasn’t going anywhere. So we sent back to our vehicles to set up our gear. I few minutes later I came back with D4s / 800f5.6 on the Zenelli a top the Gitzo 5561SGT and shooting at eleven frames per second, captured the images above. The series of four demonstrates just how damn fast these suckers can be! It smoked my ass!!!!
This little devil ran, jumped, hoped, skipped, and flew around this log (the size of a huge couch) with such speed, keeping up with it to get glass on it was near impossible! It wouldn’t stop and to be totally honest with you, watching it was really more rewarding than any photograph I might have taken. Then it got to a point where being beaten by this little critter became personal and getting the photo to tell its story became important. My best guess was, there was some prey in the log and it was hauling ass around it trying to flush it out and capture it. It was simply just an amazing show!
We were really lucky. It stuck around for quite a while and it had some what of a typical path around the log. Only by prefocusing at a location it had come to before and keeping an eye in the viewfinder (and Sharon telling me where it was, she’s so good at that) was I able to get a few in focus clicks of this amazing predator. Oh, and its cute factor is off the chart which makes the panic to get the photo even greater. The encounter didn’t last that long but we treasure it so! Having anytime with a critter of this type and in performing such unique biology is a real treat and why we get out everyday. But after this show, I know exactly where the song came from, pop goes the weasel!