Thursday, May 26, 2022 My last day here. I climbed up Dave's Hill and watched both dens for a while this morning. This afternoon, I'm going to go up Tom Miner road and explore. I leave for home in the morning
Posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2022 Still warmer – it got into the 60s today. Spent the morning at Crystal turnout, watching the South Den with Doug and a couple hundred of my closest friends. You can tell the season is beginning – cars were parked for at least ¼ mile along the road on both sides of the turnout. I got another decent video of the activity – it was overcast and cool, so the heat distortions were minimal: I also got a decent photo of a pronghorn:
Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Sunny and even warmer – it made it into the 50s today. The morning was spent watching wolves. The mother of the new pups is in the process of moving them from the North den to the South den. Nobody is sure why. When I left the North den this morning, there was still at least one to move and she was prevented from moving it by other wolves. Once again, nobody knows why. In the meantime, I got a good coyote photo and some bison calves also known as “red dogs”:
Saturday May 21, 2022 Cold and snowy at Gardiner but cold and dry at Slough Creek. This is just a generic wolf watching video, This is the kind of stuff we see off and on all day – just the wolves going about their lives. Pups come out and explore around and, sometimes, Mom stuffs them back in the hole. I was hoping to record the howling we were hearing, but it was apparently too faint for the phone's microphone and people wouldn't shut up.
Saturday May 21, 2022 Cold and sunny. I decided to go down south to check out an eagle nest I was told about. After a bit of hunting and some help by the eagle, I found it: Along the way, there was a wolf on a carcass in the Hayden Valley: And then I made a stop at LeHardy Rapids for the harlequin ducks: One other thing happened. Yesterday, they saw some much smaller wolf pups at the North (or Natal) den. That means that there is another litter there. Nobody knows how many there are, yet. But based on their sizes, the consensus is that they are 10 days to 2 weeks younger. Thus morning, I got a short video of an older and younger pup together. It starts with a younger pup out on the porch of the den. At about the 10 second mark the much larger older pup appears and pounces on it. It is quite obvious the difference in size. What is amazing is how much they can grow in just that short time. Note: it works better if you view it on Youtube. The pups are small in t...
Thursday, May 19, 2022 Wind! It was very windy this morning. So much so that I decided to come into Gardiner and get a shower and update the blog from the shelter of the truck. As I sit here, the wind is rocking the truck. I did get a bit of wolf video. I was using the truck a a wind block and was across the road from the den. That meant I got lots of cars coming through the view. Each one was only a second or 2, but it was quite annoying. So I edited them out. That's what is causing the jumps.
Wednesday, May 18, 2022 Sunny and warm today. The wolf watching was slow this morning, partially due to the thermals making viewing difficult. Here's an example – the phone is struggling to maintain focus in the shifting currents: Around lunch time, I went to see if the falcons had abandoned their nest. I think I found the new one, but it isn't in a place you can photograph it. So, I made a sandwich and had lunch. As I was getting ready to leave, I spotted this, just across the road: Later on, around 5:00 pm, we had pups come out and then 8 members of the pack picked up and left together. We assume to go hunting.
Tuesday, May 17,2022 I managed to get out of camp around 5:00 am instead of 6:00 today. All it did was make me sleepy around noon. We had pups at both dens today. The Natal den's pups are about a week older than the South den's pups, so they are venturing further from the den. But both sets are progressing. I have been remiss at showing what the people who are watching with me look like, so here's a picture from this morning: Later, I got a couple of short video of one of the bears we've been seeing around Amethyst Bench. I pasted them together into one slightly longer one:
Monday, May 16, 2022 Moving day. Another camp day, sort of. I was limited to 14 days at the Carbella campground, so today, I moved to the National Forest campground in Yankee Jim Canyon. Wouldn't you know it, but that's the only time this morning it rained – when I was getting settled. I've still got to get groceries, a shower and finish the blog stuff, so I may not get into the park today.
Friday, May 13, 2022 Friday the 13 th ! Despite the date, it was a good day – in between the bad weather – intermittent snow and all day wind. As soon as I got to Slough Creek today, it started snowing heavily for about 90 minutes. When it quit, I decided to go to the Lamar Valley to see what was happening there. While talking to Carol, a friend from Mancos, CO at Fisherman's turnout, she suddenly started and was looking up the hill across the road. There, a grizzly had just appeared about 300 yards away: At the end of the day, as I was driving back, I ran into a bear jam. This was the cause: In between, there was a wounded moose - we think the wolves got it. It may not survive. And a visit to the falcon nest – it's empty for now. And more grizzly bears. And wolves, including puppies. I couldn't count them as they were just a wriggling mass of black a mile away. And the wind was howling, shaking the scope. You couldn't tell where one pup ended and the n...
Wednesday, May 11, 2022 Sunny but cold this morning. It stayed sunny and warmed up to 60 degrees by late afternoon. Hopefully, the cold and snow is done for a while. The Slough Creek road was closed this morning. They are grading it. So, the usual turnouts closer to the den were not accessible. Instead, I hiked up to Dave's Hill. It's a hill near the road that has a good view of both the Natal den to the north and the South den to the south. But it's a good climb iup carrying the heavy scope and tripod, We saw lots of activity, pups, wolf/coyote interactions and a bear. Later, I went up to check out campgrounds beyond Cooke City, They are still under a blanket of 2 feet of snow. On the way back, I saw a fox. That gives me a 3-dog day: wolf, coyote, and fox.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022 Cold last night, but clear and dry. The roads in the Park were a bit icy in the shady spots but OK in the sunny areas. I stopped at the Chrystal turnout were you can vies the south den. This pack has 2 dens this year. Apparently the Alpha Female doesn't want to share, so the others went to this den about 2 ½ miles south to have their litters. I haven't put any wolf photos in because there aren't any good ones. This is about the best I've gotten so far.. It's a wolf coming out of the south den. The problem is that we're looking right into the morning sun, and right along the ground, so the detail is lost and the atmospheric turbulence makes focusing impossible. But I did get a decent picture of a coyote that was stalking rodents across the road:
Monday, May 9,2022 Still cold and snowy. There was 8 inches of snow when I drove through Mammoth Hot Springs this morning, but there was hardly any by the time I got to Slough Creek. Some wolf activity, but there was a bear nearby: It's supposed to start warming and clearing over the next few days. That's good, I won't need to run the furnace as much and use up all my propane so fast.
Saturday, May 7,2022 Cold, windy and snowy. Not much today. It was very windy all last night. The camper shook and rocked, keeping me from sleeping well. Today, the wind continued and then snow came in in the afternoon: We didn't see much. A bear here and there or some brief activity at the den. The snow kept visibility down a lot.
Friday, May 6,2022 More Pups! They opened Slough Creek Road late yesterday to cars, so no more walking carrying all my gear. I went in and found Doug McLaughlin set up, so I set up next to him. The wind was very bad, shaking the scopes so much that video wasn't really possible for the most part. I did manage to get this short bit of a wolf walking away from the den. The other voice you hear is Doug's. We were talking about the phone adapters. Doug is the biggest seller of the Swarovski optics in the Yellowstone area. I got all my gear from him: Optics Yellowstone facebook We did see 4 pups briefly. They were out several times, but none longer than a minute or so.. 3 blacks and 1 gray.
Thursday, May 5, 2022 Puppy! This morning I went out to Slough Creek to see what was happening. I walked out the road a bit and found Rick McIntyre Rick's Amazon page and some others, so I set my scope up with them to watch the den, For the longest time, all we saw was the alpha female's head sticking out from the opening as she slept, Then, all of a sudden, she got up and a pup came out. It was only out for 2 seconds or so and went back in. There were other reports of pups this morning, but this is the first day any have been seen, It happened so fast, I wasn't able to get any pics, but I did get a short video of a wolf later:
Wednesday, May 4, 2022 Sunny day but some bad luck. We didn't see much today, but somewhere along the way, I lost my binoculars. I looked and looked and turned the truck inside out and could not find them. I assume I set them down somewhere and drove off without them. So, this afternoon was spent replacing them. I did take a nice picuture of the campsite, again. Not a bad place to camp:
Tuesday, May 3, 2022 Yellowstone I got into the Park yesterday afternoon, but didn't see much. Today was a bit better. It was cold and rainy when I left camp, but the rain quit by the time I got into the Park and it slowly warmed into the 40's as the day went on. I briefly saw a wolf, but the show of the day was a juvenile grizzly. We watched it for well over an hour while it fed on roots. I've muted the audio. It's full of cars passing and people talking.
May 2, 2022 Carbella BLM Recreation site I'm camped about ½ hour north of the park in a free BLM campground. It was closed last year for construction, Where it had previously been “camp where you want”, now it's got 16 established campsites, each with a table, fire ring and bear box. It's situated on the top of a cliff overlooking the Yellowstone River. This will be home for the rest of the month, hopefully.
Sunday, May1, 2022 Sheridan Wyoming KOA Another year, another May in Yellowstone. I got an earlier start this year due to weather. In what has become a habit, I stopped here,just over half way. As you can see from the photo, I got a new truck – just 3/2 weeks ago. The old one had 193K miles and was starting to fail. It had stranded me twice in the last 6 months. I couldn't trust it to tow the cmper across Wyoming and Montana. So, I go a new one. I also got an adapter to coonect my phone to the scope. Hopefully, I'll be able to pot more videos.