Month: March 2017

The snow obscured much of the forage from this young Bighorn ram but he made the best of it as he nibbled as much of the sparse fare as he could find.

 

When these Bighorn sheep ewes crossed the road in front of us, one held back a bit before proceeding, watching the road, acting almost like a crossing guard.

A bull, a doe, and a ram all seemed to be smiling for me.

This elk cow at first was hesitant to walk down the steep incline.  Then, wide-eyed, she eventually made her way gingerly down the slope to flat ground but not without slip-sliding a little.

We watched this bull elk resting and napping for quite a while one afternoon on top of a hill  just outside Yellowstone National Park.  When he finally heaved himself up and gingerly made his way down the steep hillside to the pond below he discovered it was frozen solid.  There was no water to be drunk.  He rested his nose on the ice several times as if not believing he couldn’t drink, then he ambled off around the edge of the pond to join the rest of the herd.

Early on our last morning before flying home, we took a walk near the Murray Hotel, our headquarters in Livingston, Montana.  Across from the hotel is the old Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, built more than a hundred years ago.  Its  Italianate architectural style echoes the buildings of the period.  This is a detail from the   the colonnade.

Words can’t describe the breathtaking beauty of Palette Springs at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.

Despite the sunny skies, the afternoon was windy and cold.  This coyote stopped briefly and looked at us for a moment, then continued on to find shelter from the relentless wind.

 

Wednesday was a good day for big game in Montana.  We spent the entire day just outside Yellowstone National Park near Gardner, Montana on a service road.  We saw pronghorn, bison, big horned sheep, mule deer,  white tailed deer, and bald eagles.  Most of these animals were so close, I was filling the frame with my subjects, and often,  I was not able to get more than a head in the frame.

At mid morning, we encountered our first herd of bison foraging near the road.   I was riding shotgun with Jake and the bison were so close to me that he stopped his vehicle on the far side of the road so I wouldn’t be so dangerously close and so that I could get a photograph with my 600mm lens.  This trio was so intent on foraging that they never even looked up at me, only a few feet away, my lens resting on the window frame.

Anthropomorphically speaking, this mockingbird appears a little angry while feasting on the Bradford pear blossoms for breakfast Sunday morning.