ground squirrels are not that smart

Sitting in a tower all day, you get used to its specific idiosyncrasies; such as how it reacts to wind. There's the chatter of the support wires for prolonged wind, and the jarring/knocking of the entire box for wind gusts. As it was gusting today, I was looking through my binoculars without resting my elbows on my seat so I didn't get sea sick (or wind sick) from all the banging about. What I witnessed during this particular bout of movement in my tower was quite amusing. X6un was sitting on a burrow mound with her eyes shut, and she was facing the wind. She was in the alert position (i.e. up on her hind legs with her front paws clasped in front of her), but she wasn't alert in mind, just in body; although her body was quite slack and relaxed. Just as I was observing her rather relaxed posture, a sharp wind gust rattled my tower....and...knocked her on her butt. She fell with a startled thump, much like a surprised toddler when they lose their balance; the look on her face was much like that as well. She got carefully up, sort of looked around to see who had witnessed her humiliation, and then situated herself on all fours on the burrow mound. No more mishaps for her.
Not soon after X6un bruised her butt, I watched another couple of rodents have a mishap, or as we like to call them, an episode. One was intent on catching the other to either kill it or get into some serious play fighting, really not sure. Sadly, I never was able to find out..as the pursuer careened into a burrow marker. So focused was he on catching the opposition, that he failed to notice the obstacles. How unfortunate.
At days end, we went about wiring traps open, as we have a technician coming in a week from today with a portable ultrasound machine. We have girls that mated a little over two weeks ago, and we're going to take a look at how things are progressing. In other words, we'll be able to assess things more intelligently than: 'she appears to be getting fat'...sadly, though, many of the dogs are trap shy. We've decided as a way to encourage them to set foot in trap and 'take the bait', so to speak, we're going to be wiring the traps open overnight. That way, they can trot right on through and not be caught. We'll progress on from there, as we do need to catch some dogs before the guy gets here, just because several have not yet been marked. Let the games begin!