365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Thursday, July 28, 2022
Melting Marmots
Day 288: Even the marmots are melting. I took this photo before the hot spell settled in and drove the mercury above 90 degrees, but daytime highs have been there for three days running now, and several more are on the roster. We may break daily records here in western Washington, and I find myself empathizing with the marmots whose cooling snow patches are disappearing fast. That said, the marmots' thick fur coat actually insulates the animal from summer heat as well as protecting it from cold in winter. Still, marmots seem to have figured out that by chilling the insulation down occasionally, they're less likely to succumb to overheating. I rather suspect that there is a bit more physics going on here than is covered in that very basic explanation, but it will have to do for now because I'm too hot, and I don't have a snowbank to flop on.
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