Wannabe Eradicator of Voles, Wasilla

This cairn terrier is happily digging along a snow fence, trying to catch a redback vole. This is a hobby he inherited from his ancestors in Scotland. The redback vole is a little mammal that is solitary during the summer but builds and lives in communal nests under snowpack in the winter.

This area is near a bird feeder, so it also attracts the voles. Normally the voles do not run through the snow. Instead, they make little tunnels up through the snow, reach seeds with their long snouts and pull them down in seconds. No harm came to a vole during the taking of this picture.

©Photo by Anton Littau with a Pentax Optio S5i

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