Month: October 2024

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
—Scottish Prayer

Happy Halloween!

A three image composite with a little help from Adobe Generative Fill.

You never know what you’ll encounter while driving through Yellowstone National Park. We were somewhere on the Grand Loop Road heading for Tower Junction. Movement up on a berm beside the road caught our attention. Coyotes were eating what remained of a kill, probably a deer. There were four Coyotes in thick winter coats, acting a bit nervous. We conjectured that it was a wolf kill and that the Coyotes were getting what remained of the carcass but seemed very wary of their surroundings probably because the wolves might return. We shot through the open van door so we weren’t disturbing them and we were level with the berm so we could see them head on. The ribeye dinner was mostly ribs by this time.

As we walked through the forest on the trail to Moxie Falls in Maine, I noticed that the sun kept glinting through the dense thicket of trees. I always love a starburst so I stopped my lens down and captured this afternoon starburst.

The small band of Pronghorn we saw as we exited Yellowstone National Park just over a week ago was delightful to watch. They grazed contentedly for a time, going about their daily business, scratching that itch. We photographed them from inside our van which acted like a blind so we did not disturb them. Sadly, a photographer who was outside, chased them as they grazed closer to our vehicle and suddenly, the Pronghorns exhibited their “fastest land animal in North America” prowess and bounded away and out of sight. Until that moment it was an idyllic scene. It mortifies me to think that, as a photographer, I might be be lumped with the likes of those kinds of people who have no regard for the wild creatures they’re privileged to see, and who think that the photograph they’re trying for (and will not get) is more important that the well-being of the animals they seek to photograph.

It was great to see Elk in Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago. They’ve been pretty scarce in the park itself although they’ve always hung around Mammoth Hot Springs in great numbers. This Bull Elk was keeping a close eye on his harem of several cows as we watched from across the road. This bull had a nice set of antlers.

Last week for the first time, I had an opportunity to explore Firehole Lake Drive which drive has been closed for many years. One of the highlights of that opportunity was to see White Dome Geyser and to be there as it erupted. Not only that, but the eruption created a “steambow” which is a phenomenon I’d never seen, a rainbow created by the steam spewing from the geyser.

Spending a morning in Yellowstone is an experience like no other place on Earth. At times it is otherworldly like this particular morning last week when steam, backlit by the sun, spewed from steam vents and filled the sky creating landscape views seen no where else but in Yellowstone.

There were lots of Elk in Yellowstone last week. This cow stopped her grazing and, with a mouthful of grass, looked directly at me. Her quizzical look is quite charming, I think. Her ears are forward so she doesn’t seem particularly alarmed.

This is a view of Yellowstone Lake in October. The sun created diamond-like twinkles as the water undulated slightly. Yellowstone Lake is the largest lake in North America at high elevation, over 7000 feet.

A young Pronghorn buck is just developing the prong on his horns. Those small tips will eventually grown into the pronged pair of horns that gives this ungulate its name. He is alert to his surroundings, ears sensing something and those huge eyes watching for danger. We were shooting from the side of the road, inside our van, with it serving as a blind for us. A lone photographer approached the small band of Pronghorns outside on foot, walking too quickly without regard for them and causing a disruption in their tranquil feeding. Upset by his presence, they bounded away across the meadow and disappeared, demonstrating their prowess as the fastest land animal in North America.

Common Ravens seem to me to be anything but common. Their glossy black feathers make them stand out from the backgrounds in Yellowstone. Their raucous cawing is unmistakable. Their ingenuity at finding their next meal is uncanny. And, they are smart. They’ve been known to break into untended backpacks and snowmobiles to get at sandwiches and chips stashed away. They hang around potential sources of food including game kills, competing with Gray Wolves and Coyotes for bits of sinew and muscle. The other day in Yellowstone, at a couple of different locations, we had a Common Raven or two watching our every move. I was photographing Bison and Bighorn Sheep but I couldn’t resist grabbing some closeups since I already had the long lens at the ready. The three images are essentially views of the bird’s eye. The image in the Raven’s eyeball in the third image prompted my name for this post, however. The image in the bird’s eyeball is a sort of “fish-eye view” (bird’s eye view!) of our van parked at a pullout alongside Yellowstone Lake.

In the fall, Bison in Yellowstone move downslope where the snow pack is lower and new vegetation growth begins earlier in spring. They follow a number of pathways to access meadows that provide better food sources at the lower elevations. We watched a herd of Bison follow a well-worn path that would take them to feeding areas that will provide sustenance for them during the coming winter. As they ambled single file down the game trail, I couldn’t help but think how wild west looking this scenario was.

An immature male Anna’s Hummingbird approaches the feeder, out of sight on this image, and lines his beak up with the small feeding hole. It always amazes me that these tiny birds are so precise when locating the entrance to a tubular flower or small feeding tube on a nectar feeder. A backyard image.

Our last day in Yellowstone National Park was different from the other three because a cold front came in bringing rain, snow, and hail. The cloud cover made it impossible for sunrise photography but we went in search of other opportunities. The cloud cover saturated the light and made it more gorgeous than it was been in our three previous days here. As we exited the park mid afternoon Thursday, as the rain began to pummel us again, we came across a small band of Pronghorn just outside the town of Gardiner where we stayed. These two young bucks, their horns barely emerging from their heads, stuck close together and munched on the lush grasses still available before the heavy snows completely obliterate them.

The breaking of a new day in Yellowstone National Park offers lots of possibilities. Wednesday morning’s sunrise was spectacular and the day in the park that followed was just as spectacular.

It was a marvelous first day in Yellowstone National Park yesterday. The morning started out on the cool side with below freezing temperatures but as the sun came up it warmed quickly. We were happy to see hundreds of Bison in large herds as we drove through the park. Some visits, we’ve seen almost no Bison. This bull emerged over the ridge into the sunlight, still covered with a light layer of frost from the chilly night air. What was left on his flanks quickly disappeared in the morning sun.

The California Fuchsia is finally in full bloom in a large pot on my patio. The Anna’s Hummingbirds have a big selection of blossoms from which to choose. A chair, strategically placed just outside my patio door is midway between the Hummingbird feeders and the blooming Fuchsia so that I can sit on the chair and keep my eye on the trees surrounding the feeders and the California Fuchsia. At least two subadult males are vying for supremacy and each seems to have claimed a particular perch as his own. The California Fuchsia seems to be an unclaimed food source with no fighting or chasing around it. Perhaps because there are so many blossoms it isn’t necessary. So far, at least. We’ll see.

The three tiny pumpkins I picked up at the market the other day were setting on the kitchen counter when the sun rose over the neighbor’s rooftop and sent its blinding morning greeting into my kitchen. Before I closed the shutters, I glanced behind me and saw that the squash trio was lit up and reflecting onto the granite underneath as the background dissolved into darkness. I didn’t even have to move the pumpkins; they were perfectly placed. I grabbed my Nikon Z8 and the 105mm Macro, set the aperture to f/22 and handheld at 1/30 second shutter speed. I did bump the ISO to 400 because I don’t think I could hand hold a shutter speed much slower than that. I had to shoot from the side so that my shadow didn’t appear in the image, although one of the slats from the shutter does show on the frontmost pumpkin. I tried Photoshop’s Generative Fill to remove the shadow but three attempts and nine results did not remove the shadow so I left it in.

This tiny Black-capped Chickadee in Wisconsin seems to be in paradise. Surrounded by ripe crab apples, its beak has the telltale signs of crab apple consumption clinging to it and a seemingly endless supply of crab apples.

Susan’s suet feeder was very popular with the birds in her garden in Wisconsin. This little Downy Woodpecker clung to the grate, hanging upside down, and pecked at the suet for several minutes alternately extracting goodness through the grate and then, not moving a feather, savoring the treat.