He seems to be on a mission and the few photographers don't even give him pause - on across the road he goes.
We check Tower and with nothing to see we head towards Lamar Valley. Today we stop at Slough Creek to scope the Wolf den in the morning. It was a good decision as they are out of the den.
It is a L-O-N-G ways over to the den and without binoculars or our scope we wouldn't be able to see a thing. And the reports say that on our last day (Sunday) they had moved the whole family to another den and where we had parked to look - now you can't even see this new den from there. So glad we came when we did!! Here you can see the Mother and 3 of the tiny Wolf pups to the right of her.
We head thru Lamar Valley - So Many Bison!! - and finally up along Soda Butte Creek we spot a distant Moose. There's another but it's behind the trees and we can barely see him.
We pause at the curve in the Lamar River and watch 2 Coyotes running. And somewhere along the way we stopped for Pronghorn near the road.
We check our usual spots - Yellowstone Picnic Area, Roosevelt, Tower, Petrified Tree, Floating Island - with nothing to see - and finally pull into Hellroaring Hike to check for Pika. A lady is doing the same thing and says she's seen one but it never stays out long so we wander around the rocks and look and listen but never see anything besides a Marmot way up high and a Chipmunk. Lucky for me - I Love Chipmunks!!
We continue on down the road and we've missed a bear of some kind in this open area we usually see them in and there's a Black Bear dot in this other spot that they're too far away for good photos of.
Back we go to retrace our path and finally we get lucky and the Black Bear with the 2 "new" cubs is just past the Yellowstone Picnic Area. Nice to see them but so hard to get photos! If they're in the grass you might as well forget it but lucky for us the cubs pause at a tree.
They finally go up the tree for a nap but we were treated to a Fox coming right thru the crowd to grab some lunch.
On our last trip thru Lamar Valley for the day we see people down the road watching a Coyote. He's traveling right below the road and for a Coyote - he's really close! We park and wait but finally walk down to him as he's paused for a bit
He snoozed for just a bit before he finally continued his hunting.
He even came up empty when he did a flying leap
Our last stop was to watch some distant Pronghorn as they chased each other and butted heads.
We did see more Black Bears but they were mostly too far for photos.
Another great day in Yellowstone!!
Wow! I can't believe the differences in temperature! (I shouldn't be surprised, though). So. Much. Fun!!!!
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