I’ve mentioned this before but for those who don’t know, we have a house in southeast Texas where we have lived for 35 years. Now we spend a couple of months a year in that house and over six months a year in Yellowstone and other parts of the west. Because Texas has such a mild climate as compared to Yellowstone changes happen relatively slowly. We never get a true winter where many plants go dormant and some animals hibernate. We do have trees that loose there leaves but some of them still have leaves in November and many are putting out new leaves by the end of February. So we are used to a long spring, summer, and fall and very gradually changes from one season to the next.
Not so in Yellowstone where winter starts relatively early and hangs on a long time (it is snowing here today). Plants and animals who survive in Yellowstone must come up with all sorts of strategies to make it through a long winter and then grow and reproduce quickly during a relatively short spring, summer, and fall. Bison calves being born now must grow fast enough to be able to survive the winter that is only 5 or 6 months away. (Baby bison are obviously smaller than 6 month old bison. The babies have a high surface area to volume ratio so they loose heat much faster than a larger animal.) Ground squirrels who are just coming out of hibernation must reproduce and put on enough fat to be ready to begin hibernating again by the end of August. Flowers that were blooming last week are already producing fruit. Black bear females are popping out all along the north side of Yellowstone with new cubs. The large group of eared grebes at Fishing Bridge is gone and the number of harlequin ducks at La Hardy Rapids has increased over the last 3 days. Many observers thought Yellowstone Lake would ice out a few days ago but instead the whole thing fizzled and it melted in place. I don’t think that has ever happened before.
One of my favorite things about Yellowstone is to be away from the “real” life of traffic, tons of people, new subdivisions everywhere you look, etc. Here I can almost forget that part of life and concentrate on things that really matter like watching the aspens leaf out, the black bear sows emerge with their new cubs and all of the different species of ducks that are passing through. I get to watch the kind of life that really matters, life in the wild as it should be, not scarred by human interference. It is a real luxury and I know I am lucky to be here.
You are right, things happen so quickly in the spring but then they kind of fizzle for a couple of months. Love your shot of the lake – I would love to see that time lapse.