Sunday, June 5, 2015

It's time to go home.  It's time to start working on the next adventure:

Africa

I'm leaving Monday morning and will get home Tuesday evening.

Friday, June 3, 2016

More coyotes. This time pups:

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Not much today. I went to Gibbon Meadow again today in hopes of seeing the white wolf, but all we had were coyotes:

After that it was chores.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Today was either driving or waiting for a bear or watching a bear.

I left at 6:00 am to get to Gibbon Meadow to see what was going on with the bison carcass from yesterday. As I was leaving the campground, this was next to the road:

This photo is from so close, I could almost touch her.

Then it was out to Gibbon Meadow and 5 hours of waiting to see.... 2 coyotes! That was it. Around noon, I drove out and did the blog update and drove back for another 90 minutes of waiting for this:

Finally! The bear was there for about an hour and then left. I left soon after.

Monday, May 31, 2016

Up early today. I had people to find.

I needed to find Josh to give him back some camera gear he loaned me. I needed to find Laurie to tell her about the actions of 755 I saw yesterday. And, I needed to find Doug to get more cards from him.

I was sort of successful on all fronts. I found Josh, but just in passing each other on the road. We talked over the radio and I'll meet up with him later.

Laurie was at Slough Creek watching the den. I watched for a while and a pronghorn came very close by and posed for us

I found Doug also at Slough Creek and got cards. I also learned of a large bison carcass on the west side near Norris Geyser Basin. That's the home of the Canyon Pack. There maybe a chance to see the alpha female – she's a white wolf.

So, I went in search of that. My first attempt failed because I had bad information. Later, I met up with Ray and Lynn and got better info and found it.

Lots of driving around later, it was time to go back to camp. Along the way I saw some geese with 4 goslings near the road at Rainy Lake:

Monday, May 30, 2016

Moving day, Part 2. I spent the morning waiting for a family to leave so I could move to their campsite. It is a sunny space so my solar panel works much better.

Later, went back down to the Hayden valley to see what was happening there. After watching the wolf, #755, the alpha male of the Wapiti Lake pack - that's the wolf in yesterday's picture, he got a large chunk and left the carcass. Instead of heading north, downstream on the river, to their den, he went east and across the valley to their rendezvous site. This is where they move to when the pups are big enough. I hadn't heard that they had moved, so this may be new information, or at least evidence for the wolf project people.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

It was a 2-dog day. I saw wolves:

And coyotes:

I missed seeing a fox, but the one I've seen twice today caused a traffic jam, I was told.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Wolves and bears!

Today was a classic spring Yellowstone day for me – wolves in the morning and bears in the afternoon.

I started at Slough Creek at around 6:00 am, but the den area was all clouded in. We waited around for about an hour before it cleared up, but for the next 3 hours got adult wolves coming and going and pups all over the place. There are 10 adults and, depending on whose count you believe, between 8 and 11 pups, all in a space of just 2 or 3 acres. Each time the activity would die down, I would threaten to leave and a new adult would show up or somebody would see a pup or 2 at the den entrance and shout “Pups on the porch!” The porch is the flat area just outside the den entrance.

It really is an amazing place. It may be the only place in the world that is this accessible and has this good a view (with a good scope) of an active wild wolf den.

The afternoon was bears. I go pictures of one, but saw several more:

It was a good day.  

Friday, May 27, 2016

Moving day! I moved from Mammoth campground to Tower campground today. That'll save about an hour of driving each day.

Moving wasn't without it's adventures, however. I got caught in 5 (!) bear jams along the way. Here's the cause of one of them:

The other adventure was that I almost didn't get to move. The campground opened today at 8:00 am and at 4:30 am there was a line of people waiting It filled around 7:00. I got here at 8:00 and was told that there was one site that the original people had decided they didn't want. It's not ideal as it's in the shade, but can move in a few days when some people leave. My batteries will survive that long.