Hands down, the most exciting photo day for me during our Escalante trip was a drive on side road off Hwy 12 (no name in order to protect location). I had asked to stop so I could photograph a spectacular Cottonwood tree and we stumbled upon several photo ops. Besides the amazingly large Cottonwoods, there was a very cool small slot canyon but the most exiting for me was what appeared at first glance to be a miniature Indian Ruin. As I got closer, I noticed dung everywhere so being crazy about Woodrats, I immediately thought it must be a midden.

I wrote to a photographer friend, Bruce Taubert, who I thought might know because he’s an Arizona Game and Fish guy but he wasn’t sure so he forwarded my note to Randy Babb who currently works for AZ Game and Fish. (Randy is also a fantastic photographer!) Here’s his answer:

“There are at least two woodrat species (pack rats) that are found in that area. I believe that what you found is an ancient nest or midden. I don’t see any fresh signs of activity in the pictures (very nice photos by the way) such as scattered droppings, twigs or limbs or other vegetative debris that nests are constructed of. Some of these prehistoric middens can be 100’s if not 1000’s of years old. See Van Devender’s packrat book for more details on how these middens are used to determine past environmental conditions.” “My first impression was exactly yours…it looked like a miniature Indian ruin.”

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OK…who else besides me thinks this is exciting 🙂