The Mother Lode

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: prairie dog, bison, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, llama, white tail deer, elk, grizzly, coyote, badger, black bear, yellow-bellied marmot, wolf
*Birds we’ve seen on our 2012 trip so far: Western meadowlark, magpie, wild turkey, killdeer, osprey, red-naped sapsucker, sandhill crane, bald eagle
*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2012 trip so far: 2

Sometimes when we go out for a drive we don’t see much of anything but then other times we see lots, and one evening last week we hit the mother lode! In the space of a little more than 3 hours, we saw more different animals in one trip than we’d ever seen in one day including these young bulls crossing the road.

We decided to head towards Lamar Valley, and not far from the campground near the Upper Terraces we discovered a mob of people and a couple ranger cars which usually means there’s a bear in the area. Sure enough there had been, but we had just missed it. However I was able to get a beautiful shot of the terraces. We’d never seen so much water flowing over them!

As we continued our drive, we caught a glimpse of a cinnamon colored black bear, nearly ran into a yellow-bellied marmot, and passed a couple more black bears near the Blacktail Plateau turnoff. Unfortunately, I didn't get as many photos of the different animal varities as I would have liked but am sharing with you the few that I did get.

Once we got to Lamar Valley, we saw several folks with spotting scopes and pulled in behind one couple. As it turns out they weren’t spotting wolves but had discovered a grizzly sow and her cub at the very top of a ridge across the valley and offered us a look. While we were chatting with them, someone pointed out a wolf that was mingling among the bison herd in the valley below near the river. They turned their scope to find it, and sure enough, there was the most beautiful wolf we’d ever seen. It had a golden brown body with a black head and legs. Oh, how I wish I could have gotten a picture of it but the distance was too far except with a scope.

On our way back we saw several pronghorn, another grizzly and cub, a bull elk with the beginnings of a nice rack, a couple more black bears, and more elk. In fact as we got back to Mammoth, we spotted this cow keeping a watchful eye over three calves. As we were driving back down the hill towards the campground, we passed a bison making his way up the hill to town but the picture I was blurred. Didn't expect to see him there!

A couple of days later we went out once again later in the evening for a quick drive, and though we didn’t see much wildlife this trip, we did spot our first bald eagle since we got to Yellowstone this year. It was perched high on the limb of a dead tree near Swan Lake Flats, and the zoom on my little camera was able to get a halfway decent shot.

During the past week we made it out to dinner a couple of times with different folks, and there were also a couple more training classes. All 6 host couples from Mammoth and Indian Creek participated in the proper technique and use of the radios we’d been issued. Ranger Allan was in attendance and joined us for a “class photo”. Next we headed over to the community center for training on the portable Automated External Defibrillator (AED). Hopefully we’ll never have a need to use it.

Yellowstone Tidbits:
* Black bear: Males (boars) weigh 210-315 lbs. while females (sows) weigh 135-200 lbs. and can be black, brown, blonde, or cinnamon in color.
* YNP is the only place in the lower 48 states to have a continuously free-ranging bison population since prehistoric times. * YNP has the largest concentration of active geysers in the world, half the world's total.