Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore
A Coyote Stops on a Ranch Pasture Just Before Sunset.
This coyote was crossing a ranch pasture with his mate when he stopped and looked at me.
Category: Uncategorized
Secretary Zinke Completes Review of National Monuments
Well, after waiting all this time, all we learn is that Ryan Zinke didn’t recommend the elimination of any of the 27 monuments to President Trump, but that he did recommend the down-sizing of an unknown number (above and beyond Bears Ears National Monument) and removing use restrictions for some or all of them. I guess it could have been worse. (Actually, it could still turn out to be worse. It’s in Trump’s hands now.)
Lamb; Petaluma, California
Last spring I went out on the local roads looking for young goats and sheep to photograph. I found some kids. Click here to see one of those kids. I also found a ranch that raises miniature horses. Click here for a picture of one of them. However, I learned I was too late for lambs.
This year I went out looking a bit earlier and found a large flock of sheep with many lambs not far from my home. Here’s one of them. The sheep were watched over by a very large guard dog. It had a white coat and weighed about one-hundred pounds. It looked like a very light-colored yellow lab on steroids. I think it was a Maremma breed of protective dog. As I got out of my car to photograph, the dog came toward me to check me out. After a few sniffs he decided I was harmless and he let me pet him. He wasn’t just for “show” either. I had seen a coyote about a quarter mile from where I stopped and parked to photograph.
It was nice to see that this Sonoma County rancher used a guard dog (or dogs) to protect his sheep instead of the poisons and leg traps used on most ranches. Unlike the other counties in California (and other States), neighboring Marin County has a policy of not contracting with the Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services Unit to kill any and all predators by use of poisons and steel traps. Instead, it encourages sheep ranchers to use non-lethal predator control methods such as dogs and appropriate fencing to keep coyotes away from sheep and uses the money it would have paid Wildlife Services to subsidize the ranchers in the acquisition and use of non-lethal coyote control methods. It has worked extremely well. Coyote-caused deaths are down in Marin from the Wildlife Services days and the County has been spending less than it did when it contracted with Wildlife Services. Plus, non-target species (raptors, foxes, bobcats, badgers, weasels, domestic dogs, domestic cats etc.) aren’t being killed in Marin like they were in the Wildlife Services days. I wrote about Marin’s program in this blog.
I wish Sonoma County would follow Marin.
Featured Artist at Riverfront Art Gallery
I usually post something at least every seven days, but I’ve fallen a little behind this time. The reason is I’ve been putting together an exhibit at the Riverfront Art Gallery in Petaluma. About a quarter of my show is depicted in the above photo.
The show is titled “Wildlife as Art” and is comprised of about two dozen of my favorite images from Alaska, Yellowstone and nearby Point Reyes National Seashore. Most of the prints are on canvas with gallery wrap-style framing.
There will be a reception tomorrow, November 10, from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. I hope you can make it, but, if not, stop by later. The show runs through January 6th.
A word about the Riverfront Art Gallery. It’s located at 132 Petaluma Boulevard North in Petaluma, CA. The gallery is the creation of two local photographers, Lance Kuehne and Jerrie Jerne Morago, who wanted to open a high-end art gallery in Petaluma that would feature some of the best artists in the North San Francisco Bay Area. The gallery has been open for a little over five years and has been voted best art gallery in Sonoma County for the past five years.
The gallery operates as a co-op with about 20 members of which I am one. For more info on the gallery click here.
A Snowy Memorial Day in Yellowstone
This is what it looked like as I headed toward the Lamar Valley yesterday. That’s a road grader plowing the way. Its top speed seemed to be about 10 MPH and at a spot short of Tower the driver got out and waved us around him. I don’t know what happened to the trucks that usually do the plowing. It looks like 6 inches or more fell here.
- “This is nothing compared to winter here.”
These conditions were no problem for animals like this cow bison. However, I’m not so sure about animals born yesterday. The snow was that wet, heavy type. I wouldn’t want to be a baby elk born yesterday or the night before.
This bull elk looks healthy and a little snow is probably no big deal to him although his winter coat would have served him better than his summer coat. This photo was taken in the afternoon and most of the snow had melted by then.
Any Day in Yellowstone …
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.
Second Anniversity of My Blog
Two years ago this month I started this blog with a trip to Yellowstone. It seems fitting that I am in Yellowstone now. This is my favorite time to be in Yellowstone. I saw 14 black bears today, not counting repeats. Four were spring cubs. No grizzlies yet though.
Unfortunately, my laptop is has something wrong with it. Not a good sign and not a good time for this to happen.
Below is a photo of what is probably Yellowstone’s most famous area from a wildlife standpoint. The photo shows a small part of the west end of the Lamar Valley. The valley is sometimes referred to as America’s Serengeti because of the sweeping vistas showing large numbers of wildlife. Numerous bison are visible. There may be some smaller animals in there as well. The valley has been the best place to spot wolves among other things.
Hopefully, this laptop will remain alive until my trip ends.
