Any Day in Yellowstone …

Photo of two black bear cubs.
“Put Yer Dukes Up.”

Any day in Yellowstone is a good day.  That is especially true in the spring.  In the six days I’ve been here I’ve seen numerous bears and several wolves.  Black bears are so numerous that I’ve stopped keeping track of sighting them.  I photographed the spring cubs above the first day.  I haven’t seen nearly as many grizzlies, but I’ve seen two sows with one cub each and a few other adults.  They tend to be much farther away than black bears.

It’s a little early for babies, other than bison calves and bear cubs, but a newborn elk calf was in hiding just inside the Roosevelt gate this afternoon.  I’ve been looking for them and bighorn lambs and pronghorn fawns.  News of the elk calf will get me looking for babies more intently.  The elk calves and pronghorn fawns stay hidden most of the time for the first week or so, but the bighorn lambs can keep up with their mothers the day of birth as well as the bison calves.  Deer fawns arrive about a month later.

I’ve had my eyes peeled for badgers, but haven’t seen any yet.  I was telling a guy that two days ago and he told me he photographed three of them earlier that day.  Needless to say,  I’m looking harder now.  I got really close to a sandhill crane today.  I’ve also been photographing a lot of marmots.    Like I said, any day is good in Yellowstone.