Yellowstone Park June 10-15, 2014

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Deb1741
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Yellowstone Park June 10-15, 2014

Post by Deb1741 »

Yellowstone Park is so close to Billings that my grandson and I go to it multiple times each year. Our annual June trip is always devoted to wildlife viewing and with the exception of watching Old Faithful go off one time we didn't do anything other than watch wildlife. We had planned on doing 12 mile hike behind Barronette Peak but were unable to do so due to Pebble Creek (which you have to ford 4x) running to high and fast for us. :(

"Top 5 Experiences for the Trip" *All photos taken by my grandson (the best camping, hiking, backpacking, bear-watching buddy a grandma could ever ask for)
#1- Spending 12 hours on Friday and 14 hours on Saturday watching a bison carcass in Lamar. A cinnamon black bear visited it twice, and we had 2 different grizzly bears on it with one coming back two more times. No wolves which surprised us. The best part of the experience was socializing with other people sitting out the carcass with us and sharing our scopes with adults and kids driving by. Spent over 3 hour talking to a young couple from Australia that were on a 3 month holiday that started in South America. It was a blast to see faces of people seeing a grizzly for the very first time through the scopes. The carcass was 1/2 mile out so these are the best pics we were able to get (they were taken with a 500mm lens that one of the other watchers let my grandson put on his camera). :D
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#2 Seeing this badger. I had seen him run into some sage brush so we were searching for him. I was walking through the sage brush way off of where we thought he was when all of a sudden he jumped up 10 feet in front of me and started running directly towards me disappearing into a hole 5 feet from me. Needless to say he scared the #%^* out of me and I screamed like a girl! My grandson is still wishing he was taking a video of me at the time :lol: as he is sure that it would go viral.
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#3 Seeing a peregrine falcon and chicks at Calcite. We had never seen one before so it was really cool. No pics as it was just too far for our 300mm lens.

#4 We saw this beaver swimming along the shore of the Yellowstone River so stopped and went upstream from where he was swimming. To our surprise, he came out of the river about 15 feet from us and proceeded to groom himself for about 10 minutes before going back into the river. He knew we were there but couldn't have cared less. It was late in the evening so the pics are dark but it was a cool experience.
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Yawning beaver.
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#5 Finally being able to see and get pics of the black bear with the 3 cubs. We had been by many times when the crowds were like a zoo so never stopped. Saturday night we drove by around 9pm and she was out close to the road. Pics were hard to get as it was getting dark so these are the best we could do.
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Final Animal Count
Black Bear Sightings- 12, Moose-1, Grizzly- 9 (all too far away to get decent pics with our lens), Wolves-2, Osprey Nest with two adults and probable eggs, Eagle Nest with at least 1 baby, Badger-1, Beaver -1, Coyotes-5, numerous Big Horn Sheep rams and ewes along with 4 babies, and probably the most elk in Hayden Valley area that I have ever seen in all the years I've been going to Yellowstone.

Black bears were very close to the road and we saw a lot of cinnamon black bears. A lot of people thought the cinnamon black bears were grizzly bears.
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And of course, our trip would not be complete without a pic of "Grizzly Rock" :D
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We had quite the discussion with 3 people swearing there were 2 grizzlies mating on a ridge about 5 miles away from the pullout where we were watching the bison carcass. We turned 4 different scopes on the area and all of us agreed that they were two rocks. The people were quite adamant that they had seen them moved and they were indeed grizzly bears mating even though we pointed out that they had not moved 1 inch in the next 30 minutes and again in 60 minutes. After the people left we decided that if, indeed they were bears that we needed to find out what type of grass and roots they were eating so we could start marketing it especially after they were still in the same position 4 hours later when we checked. :lol: :shock:

Deb
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"Today is your day, your mountain is waiting, so get on your way" ~ Dr. Suess
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Re: Yellowstone Park June 10-15, 2014

Post by Selkie »

A delight to see the animals enjoying the world! I must rethink my general proclivity to avoid the busy seasons. I love the flowers as context.
Very nice! :D
Good luck with that elixir... :D
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