I took a short trip on the Cherry Creek Bike trail, and just about a mile from my home is a weed-strewn patch of land between some of the Cherry Creek waterfalls and the John F. Kennedy Golf Course.  I call it Prairie Dog City, and subsequently learned that the nesting areas of prairie dogs are called "towns."  This is where prairie dogs go to work, play and do their laundry.

Prairie Dogs are amazing creatures and oh, so cute!  Most of them are timid around strangers, but I found a few very close to the bike path who allowed me to get within a few feet to take some glamor shots.  These have been cleared with their agents so I can publish them.  Other prairie dogs, further from the path, were a little more skittish about having their pictures taken.  Scientists claim that prairie dogs have the most sophisticated language and communication skills of any creatures in the animal kingdom, with more than 5,000 different warnings, each associated with a different predator.  I witnessed this amazing skill at Prairie Dog City, where about a dozen of them were out sunning themselves, playing polo and dining on locally grown vegetation.  As a hawk flew overhead, an alpha male chirped out a warning, and with every bleat, it thumped its tail on the ground.  Those who strayed from their holes returned. 

If you are looking for nature to entertain you, Prairie Dog CIty is the place to go.

All photos Copyright 2010 by Kerry Gleason.


"Where's the cable guy?  He was supposed to be here an hour ago."


"You kids!  Stay offa my lawn!"


"Take me down to the Prairie Dog City
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty,
Oh won't you please take me home?"


One of the prairie dogs' fiercest predators, a hawk, flies overhead, and the prairie dogs hunker down.  This alpha male was thumping his tail and barking a warning to his mates.


A prairie dog home.  The dirt mound keeps waters from flash floods from drowning the rascals.


Along the bike trail, I spotted this fallen tree.  As I passed quickly, it looked like a silhouette of a woodpecker.  Which, in itself, would be ironic.