black bear friday

Today was my first day off, and I was eager to get out and see what wildlife was about. I dropped Steve off at work at 8:30 a.m. and headed towards Tower.

I pulled into the Hellroaring Trail Head and headed down the dirt road. There have been reports of bears in the area, and I was scanning both sides of the hillside as I approached the TH parking lot. As I pulled around the corner to the parking lot I was surprised to see a large black bear laying right underneath the TH sign.


I stopped the car, and right after I did another car pulled up next to me. We watched the bear snuffling around in the grass for about a minute


until he decided to stand up and graze alongside the parking lot.


And then he meandered a bit around the lot,


and turned and headed our way.




He crossed the parking lot, turned right in front of my car, sniffed my bumper, and disappeared over a ridge. (I took all of these photos from inside the car).

After I caught my breath, I drove on to the Lamar Valley. I spotted two small red dots on the hillside, pulled out the binocs, and saw my first bison calves of the year.


Two coyotes crossed the road in front of me, there were antelope lounging in the sun,


and a herd of bighorn sheep across from the Yellowstone picnic area. I pulled into the Wrecker Pullout to scan the mountainside, and caught a movement near a herd of elk. For the next ten minutes I watched two wolves hunting elk (unsuccessfully), until both the elk and the wolves disappeared over a ridge.

bison friday

The season is winding down; the hotel closes on Sunday, and we ship out on Tuesday. We decided to hop on one more tour, so yesterday we tagged along on the last photo safari.

The theme of the day was bison--more specifically, bison on the road. We also saw several coyotes, and both bald and golden eagles. We found an elk carcass along the Madison that the "mystery pack" of wolves had taken down the night before, but sadly the wolves themselves didn't make an appearance.

trip north: part 1

We had a great two days up North, but I'll leave this post to the animals...

We set off for Mammoth at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday (our Saturday) via the luggage coach. We had a great trip up: we saw 3 (separate) large herds of bison, a few elk, 3 coyotes, and 2 bald eagles.

We woke up bright and early on Wednesday morning and made a beeline for the Lamar Valley. We passed several elk and bison on the way, and just past Slough Creek campground we encountered this guy on the side of the road (note his research collar).


As we followed slowly behind him, he'd zig-zag from the road,


to the shoulder


and back to the middle of the road again. Pretty soon we ran into these three bison on the road,


and he decided it would be fun to chase them.


He chased two off the road, but the third bison turned the tables on him and chased the coyote off into the sagebrush.


Then I made Steve pull over so I could fire off a couple of shots of this bison in the morning light.



About a mile down the road we had another coyote cross the road in front of us,


and as the valley opened up we saw two more coyotes crossing the frozen Lamar River. We stopped at a pull-out and watched two of the Druid wolves feeding on a carcass; as we stood there, the rest of the pack, somewhere in the trees and out of sight, began to howl. This is a sound we'll never tire of hearing.

Near the confluence, there were three bighorns hanging out in their "usual" spot.


We headed east, out the Northeast entrance, and into Silver Gate. We were determined to find a moose for my Uncle Donn, and sure enough, we spotted one. Well, make that three! They were all together, feeding in the trees just off the road. It was snowing heavily at this point, and we were able to watch them from the car for a few moments before they disappeared into the trees. It's amazing how fast they can move in deep snow--in an instant, they were gone.





Coming back through the park, we spotted this bald eagle just off the road, near the Buffalo Ranch.


We saw the Druids again, feeding on a different carcass, just above the Lamar River. Below them, a coyote was feeding on the remains of a carcass that was frozen in the river, which he then had to defend from another passing coyote. Just then, we heard the howls and yips of a pair of coyotes further on down the river. In case you're keeping track, that brought the day's coyote total to 9!

Heading back towards Mammoth we ran into this guy, who had an itch--and a way to fix it.


That's the spot.


What are you looking at?!


We passed a herd of cow elk


and a few bulls as well.


There was also a herd of pronghorn antelope feeding on the plateau near the park boundary/Gardiner.



All in all, a great day to be out.

will stop for wildlife

It's snowing outside our window, and we're pretty darn excited. While most of the East Coast and Midwest has been hammered with snow (sorry, Kinz!), we're still waiting on our big storm. And we need it, boy do we need it. So far there's just a light dusting of powder on the ground, but we're hoping it will continue on through the night.

Yesterday we signed up for an employee-only tour to West Yellowstone. The newest addition to the winter fleet of vehicles here in the park is the Glaval;


transportation decided to do a test run with it, and we signed up to go on the tour. We took off around 8:30 a.m. and headed towards West. We didn't get far--to Fairy Falls--before we ran into a bison jam on the road.


The normal employee runs to West don't stop, but because this was a test run for a normal tour we stopped at points along the way, and for wildlife. We pulled off at Midway Geyser Basin and checked out Fountain Paint Pots


and Rusty Spouter.


Alongside the boardwalk you'll spot these boulders, which are actually remnants of the old road that ran through the geyser basin.


Because this was a tour, we only had about an hour in West once we arrived, just enough time to hit the post office, grocery store, and grab lunch before we headed back into the park.

Despite combing every inch of the Madison valley that we could see, we didn't spot any wolves or bobcats, just a small herd of elk resting by the shore of the river. Our next stop was Firehole Canyon drive, where we saw a few more elk, and also Firehole Cascade


And by popular demand (ahem), more coyote pictures! To my delight, we also pulled over and watched these two mousing along Madison River for about ten minutes.