Kestrel

Kestrel, Point Reyes National Seashore

Male Kestrel Point Reyes National Seashore

A male kestrel perches on a metal fence post.

I love to photograph kestrels, especially the males because of that additional gray/blue color.  I would have preferred a wooden fence post here, or better yet, a nice tree branch.  The post reminds me of a photo contest rule that the camera clubs in the SF Bay Area followed when I was a member of one of the clubs.  I think it was referred to as the Hand-of-Man Rule.  As I recall, if you entered a photo in the nature/wildlife category, there couldn’t be anything in the photo that was man-made.   Obviously, this photo wouldn’t qualify, and rightly so.   I might be more sympathetic if the metal post were a wooden one, especially if the post were very old and weathered, but rules are rules and it’s not easy to make exceptions.  They did have an exception though, which I thought made the whole rule kind of stupid.  As I recall, the exception allowed for photos of wildlife that were collared or tagged in some way.   I could never figure out the justification for that one.  My only thought was that when they wrote the rule there was someone involved in the rule-writing who had a photo of a tagged or collared animal that he/she really wanted to enter in a contest in the wildlife category.  As I write this I wonder if some photos I took recently of a coyote in a field planted with silage for later mowing and feeding to livestock would be prohibited by the hand-of-man rule.  Writing clear rules (or laws) is not easy.

Rocky Mountain Elk

Elk Calf, Yellowstone National Park

Elk Calf Yellowstone National Park

An elk calf looks at the camera.

My favorite time of year to be in Yellowstone is now.  To be more specific, I like to be there from mid May to mid June.  The main reason, of course, is all the baby animals.  But that’s not all.  The colors are fantastic then also.  Yes, the crowds can be frustrating.  I remember going there in the early 1970’s to photograph wildlife and I never saw another serious photographer.  Really.

I didn’t go this year and I really miss it.

Bobcat

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore

Bobcat Point Reyes National Seashore

A bobcat crouches as it walks through the grass in Point Reyes National Seashore.

This bobcat photo was taken in Point Reyes National Seashore in early March.  The grass was nice and green from the winter rains.   It’s a different story now.  Thanks to our Mediterranean climate, for the next six months you’re photographing most wildlife in brown grass and scattered green shrubs.  In areas where there is no livestock grazing, the tall brown grass can be aesthetic.  But where grazing has occurred, it loses that tall, aesthetic look.  And where grazing has been heavy, it can get downright ugly.  It’s that way in a lot of the ranching area of the Seashore.  Needless to say, my favorite time of year to photograph wildlife in the Seashore is during the rainy season, from November or December through April.

Mountain Goat

Mountain Goats, Yellowstone

Photo Mountain Goats Yellowstone

A nanny goat and her kid rest in the Hoodoos Area of Yellowstone.

It’s not easy to see mountain goats in Yellowstone.  There is a viewing location in the northeast part of the park on the road to Cooke City.  Look for the sign that says Barronette Peak.  But the goats are quite a distance away for viewing, even if you have a spotting scope.   Occasionally they show up in the Golden Gate Area which is the Gardner River Canyon you drive through before topping out at Swan Lake Flat.  The area is also called the Hoodoo Area.  Both names refer to the color of the rocks.  I saw these mountain goats in the canyon early one morning.  I posted an earlier article about a billy goat in the same area.

The Park Service says mountain goats are not native to Yellowstone, but the result of the introduction of mountain goats for hunting by the State of Montana in the 1940s and 1950s.  Apparently, they were released not that far from the northern portion of Yellowstone and they became established in the northern portions of the park in the 1990s.  The Park Service also says they may be having a negative effect on bighorn sheep by competing for food.  The Park Service is doing research now with other agencies on mountain goat ecology and to determine the effect of the goats on bighorn sheep.  Here’s a video about the harm caused by Yellowstone mountain goats.

The Park Service uses the time period of when European man arrived in North America as a goal, time-wise, for protecting, preserving and restoring our national parks.  The Park Service is saying the goats weren’t there then.  I don’t have any problem with the Park Service’s idea of striving for conditions like those that existed when European man arrived in this country.  In fact, I totally support that policy.  But the goats are native to parts of the western United States.  What if the goats were in the Yellowstone area 10,000 or 100,000 years ago?  Would the policy still say they aren’t native?  I don’t know, but I would support treating the goats as native in that case.

Blacktail Deer

Blacktail Deer, Point Reyes

blacktail deer point reyes national seashore

Blacktail Buck at Sundown

I was out at Point Reyes recently.  Thistle and other vegetation that I’ll call “weeds” are growing tall, making it harder to spot bobcats.  I only saw one and he wasn’t having any of me.   I shot some video of a coyote who was in a field that had just been mowed to get rid of thistle and other weeds (not silage mowing), but the midday sun was harsh.  As the day was nearing its end I decided to go to the elk enclosure at Pierce Point.  I was there a bit photographing cow elk and yearlings in nice light.  After a while the light was fading and I decided to head home.  Shortly after leaving the elk enclosure I saw this blacktail buck.  He was bleeding a bit on the upper inside of his left foreleg.  I don’t know what that was from.

The sun was disappearing fast when I took this photo and I had to shoot at a much higher ISO than I like, but when I have a nice subject I just keep shooting and worry about the noise in the image later.

Rocky Mountain Elk

Elk Calf, Yellowstone National Park

newborn elk calf

Newborn Elk Calf along the Madison River

I apologize to those who have followed my blog for not having posted anything for many months.  I’m back and one thing I did during the interim was build a new website (and get rid of two former websites).   Hopefully, I’ve done what it takes for everyone to find this site.   Another thing I did in the interim was go through old images, like this photo of an elk calf, which I photographed in 2014.  When I look at old photos I don’t remember much about some, but others I remember very well.  That’s true with the images of this elk calf.

It was mid-June in Yellowstone and I was driving along the Madison River looking for animals to photograph, especially baby animals.  I don’t regularly drive along the Madison because I don’t have much luck there.  That’s partly because the elk herd in the Firehole/Madison area numbers less than 100 animals.  It’s the only elk herd that stays in the park in the winter and that takes its toll.  The animals are also affected by high fluoride and silica levels in the plants and water which wear their teeth out prematurely.  They live about five years less than elk in the rest of the park, according the the Park Service.

Anyway, it was getting late when I spotted a cow elk with this very small calf.  Another photographer was already there and he told me he saw the mother give birth that morning.  He added that a pair of coyotes had made an attempt to get the calf, but the mother had held them off.  I stayed until I couldn’t see and took this photo well after sunset.  By that time I had developed some connection to the calf and its mother and I decided that even though it was far from where I was staying I would get there by first light the next morning to see if the little one made it through the night.  I got there by first light, but there was no sign of the calf or its mother.  I hope it made it.