This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
I’ve decided to put a large copyright watermark on my blog images due to theft problems. Some people are not deterred by the copyright symbol and my name in the corner of my images. Hopefully, this will cut down on the theft.
I started to do a portrait of this animal and started cropping it. After every crop I decided to crop more. Before I knew it I was here. Then I realized it wasn’t clear what it was any more. It’s probably not hard to guess what it is. One more crop, showing just the eyes, would have made it tougher. What is it, or, as the title says, who am I?
That didn’t take long to solve. I’ll have to do one that is a little tougher. Time to add some relevant tags to this post.
This is a two-and-a-half year old female. She was just just given her walking papers by her mom. This is normal for grizzly bears. This happens to black bear cubs at age one-and-a-half.
She was very nervous, constantly looking over her shoulder. Mom was no longer there to protect her and she had killed an elk calf which lay nearby and which other predators, including bigger bears, could smell.
Finding the calf shows she has learned an important skill. I think she’ll do okay surviving on her own.
This is a mother badger tending to her den entrance. She had one baby which was underground at this time. It was about half her size. Interestingly, the young one was much a much lighter color than her. It reminded me of the blonde colored badger at the Yellowstone Picnic Area that killed and ate the red fox kits. I wrote about that here. This den wasn’t far from the picnic area. I’m guessing that guy fathered her little one.
This is one of only three wolves that remain in the Lamar Valley. At one time there were over 30 wolves in the Lamar. Wolf numbers are down throughout the park due to various factors such as wolves killing other wolves and humans shooting wolves when they move outside park boundaries.
I have hardly seen any coyotes or wolves this spring. Today was a good start in correcting that. The first thing I saw to photograph was a pair of coyotes moving down from the Mammoth area toward the Gardner River below.
Not long after that I saw two wolves crossing the Blacktail Ponds area and headed my way. Both wore collars. Unfortunately, they changed direction and this photo is as close as I got to either of them. As of December 2012, there were only 79 wolves in the park. The highest count was 171 in 2007. Ten wolves which lived in Yellowstone most of the time were shot in the first hunting seasons outside the park. Most were shot within a mile or two of the park. Eight of the ten were wearing radio collars. Anyone with radio telemetry can now find wolves with the radio telemetry and shoot them when they leave the park which it seems people are doing.
While I haven’t seen many coyotes or wolves, I have seen quite a few red foxes which I used to hardly ever see.
It’s hard to write a blog while visiting Yellowstone in the spring because there is light until 9:00 p.m. and it takes an hour to get back to Gardiner where I’m staying. Then there is dinner and downloading images. I’m writing this while my car gets an oil change.
When people visit Yellowstone they’re looking for mammals, especially bears and wolves and they large herbivores they prey on. But the park has a lot of interesting smaller animals, including birds. I found this osprey in the Gardner River Canyon. I’ve checked on four active nests in and around the park. No eggs have hatched yet. I haven’t seen any nests near the Gardner River.
Birthing among the mammals is well underway. I’ve seen a few baby pronghorn. Yesterday was the third day in a row that I’ve seen and photographed an elk calf in its first day of life. I stopped at the Mammoth Visitor Center yesterday and there was an elk calf being born right next to the building on the lawn. It stood up 45 minutes after being born. I’m looking forward to seeing my first bighorn lambs of the year.
