As an avid nature photographer, I love catching the moments when wild animals seem to display the most human of traits. Every now and then, I am lucky enough to observe these moments, when animals behave in ways I can’t help but find familiar. During a photo shoot, after hours of observation, I often can’t keep myself from relating to the different characters I am photographing. I found these two chipmunks, for example, taking a brief midday break from nut gathering. I watched them come out from forest’s edge and into the sunlight, just to take a rest from work and have a friendly “conversation”. The liveliness of the fat one’s chattering, along with the eagerness in which the other one listened in, reminded me of two friends enjoying a lunch-time chat. I can’t help but wonder what these two were discussing. Perhaps it was the quality of this season’s nut harvest. Perhaps it was something interesting one of them overheard at the nut market. Perhaps it was a new nut recipe one of them had learned at nut-cooking class. Perhaps it is just meaningless noise. As outsiders observing them, we can only imagine.
I want to see them animated! That is so cool…thanks for sharing!