Long-Tailed Weasel

Here are some photos of a Long-Tailed Weasel from Yellowstone.  He was originally identified as an Ermine but later was corrected to the Long-Tailed Weasel due to the length of his tail.  The black tip on their tails help them survive as raptors will go for the black tip and allow them to escape.

Meggi spotted him while will we were headed down one of the snow covered roads.  The snowcoach driver stopped suddenly, I grabbed my 500mm lens and headed to the door.  Of course, the driver was trying to grab some of his gear and hadn’t opened the door.  I started raising my voice and ended up yelling for him to “please open the door!”.  That got his attention and I started shooting from the open door.  However, the people behind me weren’t too pleased so I bailed out of the vehicle and the pursuit was on for this little critter.

In my haste to get at least a few shots before he disappeared under the snow, I forgot my hat and gloves.  Also forgot that my 1.4X was still on, so trying to quickly focus on this fast moving little critter was a major challenge.  He ran back and forth along near the road for about 20 min.  At one point he ran across the road and back and went straight for our workshop leader, Jared.  Thought that we was going to try to run up his leg.

Several other vehicles stopped while we were there to get photos.  It was lots of chaos but also lots of fun.  Had to sneak back to the bus at one point to grab my hat/gloves and take off the teleconverter.

Taken with Canon 1DX and Canon 500mm F4 IS II with 1.4X III telconverter, handheld

1/2500 sec @ F7.1, ISO 800, spot metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm

1/2000 sec @ F7.1, ISO 800, spot metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm, with minimal cropping