Just practicing
These are young Arctic Ground Squirrels and to make matters worse, they are siblings. I photographed them at Anadyr harbour in Chukotka where they had become quite habituated to humans. Being at the bottom of the food chain they are naturally quite skittish as lots of things naturally prey on them. They were keeping close to their burrow entrance and would occasionally scamper down it. I took some cute photographs of the two sitting together and then this happened. They aren't really mating. Just getting a bit of practice in.
Just practicing
These are young Arctic Ground Squirrels and to make matters worse, they are siblings. I photographed them at Anadyr harbour in Chukotka where they had become quite habituated to humans. Being at the bottom of the food chain they are naturally quite skittish as lots of things naturally prey on them. They were keeping close to their burrow entrance and would occasionally scamper down it. I took some cute photographs of the two sitting together and then this happened. They aren't really mating. Just getting a bit of practice in.