Ptarmigans and Pikas - favorite high country critters

On the backpack trip to Snow Mesa, I saw pikas and ptarmigans (among other critters).  Many folks have seen pikas, if they hike above treeline in and around boulder fields, although seeing marmots is way more common, since marmots are so much larger than pikas.  I have always loved pikas, running around all summer gathering up grass and other food stuffs for the long winter ahead.  I have read that pikas are less common than they used to be, with the explanation being global warming shrinking their high cold weather habitat.  When the kids were younger we would go the Natural History Museum (Nature and Science, now) and spot various animals in the dioramas (and look for the hidden gnomes, too).  They had an interactive kiosk that was a sort of guessing game, giving clues about an animal, with you guessing which animal was being described.  The pika was one (and my favorite) of the animals described.  The picture I took on this trip wasn't my best, but I included it to remind myself of seeing my good buddies, the pikas.  Here's that picture again (kind of a mystery animal picture - something I specialized in years ago, by default, because I could never get close enough with the regular lens I had at the time - so you just looked in the middle of the photo and if you stared at it long enough you might actually see the animal I was taking a picture of), and a few earlier pictures of Pikas that I took in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, and one (Pika running with grass in his/her mouth) Anna snapped on a hike we took here in CO.

I also saw a group of Ptarmigans, and managed to get a picture before they all flew off.  I have only stumbled on Ptarmigans a few times, always on the continental divide trail, usually above 12,000 feet.  They are definitely masters of camoflouge - the bird blends in so well in all seasons, being white in winter, and this mottled coloration that blends so well into the high country background.  Here is that pic again.