Summer 2018

May 22,2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone This is my last day here. Tomorrow, I'll move down to the Tetons and then home by Thursday evening. This morning was wolves again and them moving around seeing stjuff. We had 2 eagles in the tree from the wolf watching area: And a pronghorn just off the road: And a black bear near the road as well:

May 21, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone No wildlife today. Normally, I'm up around 6:00 am and out to see the wolves, but today I slept in until 8 and went down to Canyon to see the falls. Then back to camp for a shower in the hotel and just napping, reading and lounging around. Even dinner was easy – leftovers in the microwave.

May 20, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone Lots of Wolves and Bears. Today was lots of wildlife. 10 wolves in the morning – all 8 surviving pups and 2 adults. The grizzly from yesterday was still around, so when the wolves werent' doing anything, all the scopes swung around to watch the bears. After lunch, I went up towards Tower Falls to see if any black bears were to be seen. That area is rife with them. All I saw there, however, was a single onein a tree being watched by about 50 people. I was shown where an osprey nest is in the canyon. I had been hearing about it for several years but was never able to find it. I then showed that man where the perigrine falcon nest is. It's not much of a nest, though. Just her sitting on her eggs on a ledge : Later, I did 5 more black bears in other areas and 4 more grizzlies. 13 bears total for the day – 6 blacks and 7 grizzlies.

May 19, 2018 Lots of wildlife today. At one point, you could see wolves, a bald eagle, bighorn sheep, bison, a pronghorn and a grizzly with 2 cubs. Here's a picture of her butt : Later, there was a black bear near Elk Creek: And later, we may have figured out what wolf 996 is doing picking up pups and carrying them off. It appears he just wants to play with them. Twice this morning, he tried but the other adults made him drop them. This afternoon, he tried again and was made to drop the pup once, but the second time succeeded is carrying it about 25 feet away and playing with it before he let it go and it went back to the den. Apparently, the time he killed the pup was an accident – he grabbed it too tightly or something.

Friday, May 18, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone More wolves in the morning and a few bears, but no pictures. I did get this video of one of the mom wolves putting a pup in the den with other pups moving around: The afternoon was chores and then just reading. It rained most of the evening,

Thursday, May 17, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone We had a wolf adventure this morning. Apparently, we watched an adult wolf kill one of the pups. It isn't clear if it was intentional or not – the experts disagree. Most of the pack was gone from the area, leaving one adult – 996M - as a baby-sitter. At one point, he went up to the den and 9 pups came pouring out and swarmed all over him. It seems he didn't like that. He'd move to one side and they would swarm him, so he'd quickly move to the other side of the den and they would follow. Finally, he snatched one up and carried it, squirming, down the hill. We could just see the top of his back over the grass and small hill. About 10 minutes later, he got up and carried the limp pup away. At that point, somebody said “Is anybody videoing this?” I said I would try and about 45 seconds, but after editing out the parts where I couldn't find the wolf and uploading to Youtube, i...

Wednesday, May 16, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone After yesterday's nap, I realized I'm getting tired, so I decided to just drive down and see the geysers today. Along the way was a grizzly and cub in the Hayden Valley: Old Faithful: And a waterfall:

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone It was a short day. After spending a chilly morning watching the den: I headed back to camp for lunch. Along the way, I found a black bear – walking across the Yellowstone River bridge! I took that picture through the windshield just as he was leaing the bridge. All the people behaved. The cars coming the other way stopped and waited for him to cross while the line I was in stayed well enough behind that he just walked all the way – right down the centerline. After lunch, I took a nap – for 3 hours! That kind of did my day in.

Monday, May 14, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone. The mornings at the den are interesting. Lots of waiting around while wolves sleep and then, all of a sudden, things will wake and pups will emerge and everybody is glued to their scopes. Or quickly letting the folks without scopes see. I haven't gotten any shots with the pups. That's the next goal.

Sunday, May 13,2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone Not much new. The general pattern of each day is go see the den on the morning, back to camp for lunch and chores and whatnot around noon and then back out in the afternoon to just see what I can see. Along the way, I'm working to get the phone/scope combination working better. Some progress had been made. If I'm not zooming too much, I can get this: From maybe 200 yards. But, large zooms are still not very good. Here is the wolf den with the alpha female sleeping alongside. This was from just over a mile away: And, of course, none compare to the Canon stuff at close range:

Saturday, May 12, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone Another cold morning, but it warmed to 60 or so by late afternoon. No rain. More wolves this morning. The pups came out again at 8:00 am. They must have an alarm clock or something. I'm still struggling to get any kind of picture with the phone/scope setup. The folks with Samsun Galaxy phones do pretty good, but my older LG phone isn't working well. Later, there was a grizzly out in the Lamar Valley: It never got closer than about 200 yards away.

Friday, May 11, 2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone It was a gray, cold, rainy day. The sun would occasionally come out, but it was rare. Not so rare are these: Bison calves. They are all over. I started the day at Slough Creek where the wolf den is. About 8:00, all the older pups came out. The total count was 10. This is 2 litters born on April 21. There is a third litter born about 10 days ago that should be coming out in about a week. Then, it was drive around a lot and not see much. Finally, I went up to the Tower Falls and found a black bear with a single cub of the year (called COY). This little guy has all kinds of energy, bounding up tree branches and just running around:

Thursday, May 10,2018 Mammoth Campground, Yellowstone Spent the morning getting into the park, getting to the campground, getting a site and getting the trailer all setup. This afternoon I went out to see what was what. At Slough Creek, there is a wolf den visible from the road. The closest you can get to it is just over a mile away, so pictures are hard to come by. It's possible to use my phone through the spotting scope, but in the afternoon, the thermal turbulence makes getting any kind of picture amost impossible. I'll try in the mornings. But, we could see what was going on – mostly wolves sleeping. Every hour or so, one would get up and go into the den. Another would come out. We called that changing shifts. The pups are only about 3 weeks old, so they need to be watched. They did come out and stood at the den entrance around 4:00 for about 5 minutes. They are small, it was far and warm, so they were hard to see. We weren't even sure o...