Wildlife at Yellowstone

It was amazing to drive in to Yellowstone and enter a strange and exciting land. Shortly after we entered we drove under an osprey nest and started seeing the bison. Every day we saw animals. They largely seemed oblivious to the human audience, going about their daily business.


Much of the habitat reminded me of the African Savannah. I felt like if I looked closely I would see elephants instead of bison and alligators in the water. I guess my mind went there because of all the nature shows I've watched about Africa. But here is a truly stupendous biome that is full of large animals and it's in the USA. With it's borders of woods and higher mountains it's not surprising there is so much diversity and wildlife.

Part of what made the experience so amazing was that sense of anticipation. We quickly realized the area was full of life. There were signs of animals all around. I quickly became the "poop expert". We also found tracks and scratches. Perhaps once the most exciting and eerie things was the bones. We found entire skeletons and sometimes scattered remains, a clear reminder of nature's uncertainties.

I'm going to make separate posts for bison, bears and wolves. They are the ones that stick in my mind the most, but that was just a small part of the overall experience. Once I get my film developed I may have more pictures to add. Some day I'll have a really good camera/lens for capturing wildlife.

The deer were shy compared to the other big mammals. We didn't see many. I was alone, by a river, when I found this one. It was peaceful to watch her.

Can you find the moose? We never got a good look at moose. Renae was disappointed. In fact there was debate over whether we actually saw a moose at all. This is my proof :)

This guy was camera shy at first. It's a Uinta squirrel. They both hibernate and estivate (dormant during summer)!

Out comes a Golden Mantled squirrel running from beneath the board walk. Hopefully he knows where to walk without getting into the geysers or hotsprings. It seemed like an odd place to find a squirrel

Not surprisingly he (or she) seems to be looking for food.

He either thinks I'm a tree or is hoping I have nuts in my pocket. I was wondering if he'd actually climb my leg

Sometimes I see ravens at home, but they looked tiny compared to the Yellowstone Ravens. The ravens were fairly shy of people too.

The elk already had large sets of antlers. There was a pair of bulls that seemed to be sticking together. On the first day we saw bear, we kept hearing people mention the elk. We were much more excited by the bear. After it left we decided to take a look, the elk were very large and just laying there unconcerned with the human photographers.



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