YELLOWSTONE'S WILD WORLD

It was difficult to find out what was going on this morning – on a cold, snowy day in April.  And, so I just sat back and checked out the landscape for 4 leggeds trotting across.  Eventually, I learned that Rick had signals on the Junction Butte, Prospect Peak and 926’s Group, all in the same area.  My heart sunk.

If not for poor visibility we probably would have seen the Prospects before they decided to take a trip over to Lamar Valley.  Despite steady signals on the JB’s they were not seen all day.  And, once again, 926 was not seen.  Two random black pups were seen this morning through, crossing the road from South to North.  No ID but maybe Lamars going home.  I can only hope.

Once the Prospects were discovered by Rick, heading to Lamar, everyone went over there and was scoping to the west while the pack was making a kill right above them.  They were discovered a couple of hours later.  I am thinking that there were 9 – 5 greys and 4 blacks and 965 was with them.  Rick and I went to a different vantage point and had a great view of them for awhile.  Fun time!

And then the Prospects left and we waited for them over at Slough but they never showed up.

I went looking for cooperative bluebirds and the only one I found had its back to me.  So, not so cooperative.  Was going to head home but spotted a grizzly way off and so decided to wait and see what happened.  Well, I was going home again when I found the bear drinking out of a pond.

Lucky for us the bear walked through the forest, at a decent distance from the road and so we were able to get some shots off.

But, then he suddenly turned and came towards the road.

Some folks had a difficult time removing themselves from his path.

Despite a lot of people, the bear hesitates only long enough for people to move over and give him some space and then he crossed quickly and went to haze bison and ducks.

And then the bear continued up to the top of Junction Butte and back down to Wrecker.  He was hungry and looking for food.

I went on and just caught the tail end of the Wrecker show, but found some elk stirred up and somewhat frantic at Slough Creek.  One would have thought that predators were after them – turns out there were as some people had climbed up the rocks that they were near.  And, some others were walking their dog down the road.  But, I have fun watching the elk anyway.

Headed home slowly, hoping for more sightings but this pretty much ended my day.

See you again tomorrow!