Tag: yellowstone national park

Wolf

Gray Wolf, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a gray wolf near Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone National Park.
OK, for this last one, don’t look at me.  Look a little to the right.

I photographed this wolf way back in 2008.  She was returning with her pack to a bull elk carcass at North Twin Lake that a very large grizzly had taken from them.  The grizzly slept there and ate virtually every bit of the elk over a period of a few days.     She was illegally shot just across the river from the town of Gardiner a few years ago. Unfortunately, they never caught the killer.

Badger

American Badger

This is a close-up side view photo of a badger with its tail up.

Where did that gopher go?

This badger was digging at both ends of a gopher tunnel.  While he was digging at one end, the gopher escaped from the other end.  The badger didn’t see it, but somehow sensed it had left and did a little circle around the diggings and picked up the scent and got the gopher.  I was impressed.

It reminded me of a badger in Yellowstone at the picnic area near Yellowstone Bridge that entered a fox den and spent a day or two eating the food cache the fox parents had created.  When the badger entered the den, the fox kits escaped from a back entrance.  After a day or so eating the food cache, the badger left the den.  When it left it began smelling the ground, picked up a scent trail,  and made a bee line to the entrance of a nearby second den where the fox kits had gone.  It entered that second den, which we later learned didn’t have a second entrance/exit.  Unfortunately, the kits were trapped.  The badger spent the next day or two in that den and killed and ate all the kits.  It was a sad tale that unfolded over several days to a lot of photographers and viewers.  When I witness something like this I have to remind myself that this is an example of the balance of nature.  It’s worked very well until we humans came along.  Unfortunately, we’re making a mess of it.

Wolf

Gray Wolf, Yellowstone National Park

This is a photo of a male wolf in Yellowstone.

Many years ago the entire Canyon Pack passed by me at close distance.  This was at Twin Lakes.  Actually, it happened twice. The other time I was photographing marmots at the north end of Yellowstone Lake.  The marmots started screaming like crazy.  Then I got a glimpse of a Canyon Pack wolf walking on the other side of the marmots.   When that ended I decided to quit.  I turned around to go back to my car and, lo and behold, another Canyon Pack member was ambling along between me and my car parked twenty yards away.  I had a 500mm lens in one hand and a tripod in the other hand.  All I could do was watch as it went by.  At least I got the shot above near Twin Lakes.