Gray Wolf, Yellowstone National Park
I photographed this wolf on a foggy morning a year ago at North Twin Lake. It had killed a cow elk the night before. The elk carcass is just outside the photo.
Tag: yellowstone wildlife
Mad Robin, Yellowstone National Park
I was near Tower Falls last spring waiting to photograph a black bear that had decided to take a nap. I waited for a couple of hours. Nothing. The only living creature near me then was this robin that looked unhappy with my presence.
Harlequin Duck, Yellowstone National Park
When people think of Yellowstone wildlife they think of mammals like bison, elk, bears and wolves. However, it’s a pretty good place to see birds as well. There is a spot on the Yellowstone River called LeHardy Rapids. You can count on seeing Harlequin ducks there.
Bighorn Ram, Yellowstone National Park
I photographed this ram near the Yellowstone River picnic area on the road to Cooke City. This area and the area where the last photo of the lamb was shot, the Gardner River Canyon, are two of the best places in the park to see bighorn sheep.
Bighorn Lamb; Gardner River Canyon, Yellowstone National Park
My favorite time to be in Yellowstone is the spring. Why? The babies. One of the reasons I like them is that they are so full of life. They run around and jump in the air just for the joy of it. The ones that run and jump the best are the bighorn lambs. And they do it on steep terrain. Most herbivore babies are kept in hiding for the first couple of weeks until they can keep up with their moms. Not lambs. It is reported that they climb as well as their mothers when they are only one day old. I guess that lamb in the last post walked out of there the next day.
Notice how well this little lamb blends into its habitat.
Cinnamon Black Bear, Yellowstone National Park
I started this photo blog a little over a year ago in Yellowstone. I thought then that it would be a good time to start the blog because I would have, hopefully, a lot of images to get the blog going. As it turned out I got more images than I could deal with. By the time I got all the images downloaded each night it was 11:00 pm and I wanted to be back in the park by sunrise. No problem I thought. I’ll post the Yellowstone images on the blog when I get home. I was going to do that to some degree anyway.
As it turned out, when I got home I started going to nearby Point Reyes National Seashore and, to my surprise, there were enough wildlife photo opportunities at Point Reyes that I never did post much of last spring in Yellowstone. I cancelled my trip this spring which would have been my third spring trip in a row. I started posting images of spring in Yellowstone a week ago without much thought about it. I guess I missed being there. I think I’ll continue for a while.
This cinnamon black bear was a regular outside the northeast entrance last spring. I don’t know where the boundary is between Park Service land and Forest Service land. To me, he’s a Yellowstone bear.
Elk Calf in Hiding, Montana
This calf was seen very close to the road just north of Yellowstone National Park. For the first couple of weeks after birth elk calves stay hidden like this for much of the time. If they don’t move they are hard to spot. Grizzlies are known to run grid patterns through elk calving grounds until one panics and tries to run.
