Wild Memories Photography Tours

Last night I carried my scope, no camera, out for a better view of the den area and looked and looked for pups but no go for me, once again.  Jeremy is pretty freaked out about seeing me with a scope and no camera and wanted to know if I had gone hunting for mama in hopes of getting photos.

But, I am not in to hunting her down, even with knowing about where she may be because she has 7 mouths to feed and needs all of the space she can get to do her hunting.  Besides, she is scrawny right now and not real photogenic.  And, while I would love to photograph the pups, just seeing all 7 would excite me.  I am putting in a lot of time but staying low key about the whole thing because it isn’t about the race to be first, but about the quality of the experience.

Anyway, I went on in and was about to leave when Rick let Kathy know that daddy had been seen and was possibly going to cross the road.  We all changed locations in hopes of seeing him but were foiled.

Except that the babysitter came through.  I call this fox the babysitter because mama lets her join in on carcasses and so I made up a story that Spit was training her to be a babysitter.  The fox also live in the den area and is seen quite frequently around the pullout, where I am afraid she might be getting fed.

It was funny last night because the fox was standing on the road and everyone thought that she was a coyote because of her light coat but I was up higher and could see her long tail dragging on the ground.  She looks a little rough right now but truly is a beauty.

There is a cinnamon black bear that hangs around Round Prairie and the Soda Butte Campground and he is seen nearly every night and every morning.  I have never stopped and photographed him before but this morning he was on the prairie and not terribly far off, so I stopped to take some shots before going on to see if puppies were around.

At the black bear I ran into a couple of photographers on a photo tour, enjoying the early morning view and so I also stopped to talk to them.  As I said, easy goes things right now.

Before I got to the puppies, I saw a white tail buck on the other side of the creek and he really was quite a beauty, so I stopped to photograph him also.

I then went on down to Canyon and noticed a herd of elk standing in the river.  Someone told me that the wolves had been in that area earlier but they had not been seen for awhile.  I don’t usually see elk just standing in the river for more than an hour so suspect that the wolves were eyeing them but that I could not see them.  Unfortunately, for the wolves, the elk look fabulous!  Shed out and very well fed, and they did not look terribly nervous.  They seemed to have figured out this hunting deal.  After more than an hour they stepped out of the river and decided to bed down right next to it, so I am assuming that the wolves were around there somewhere.

But, it was time for a shower and laundry and so I headed towards Canyon campground.  But, for some reason, I stopped in at Wapiti trailhead, which was packed, and found two fantastic bull elk grazing very close to the parking lot.  In fact, one of them tried to go inside the bathroom!  Nearly, anyway.  One mom escorted her teenage daughter from the outhouse and the daughter did not look happy.  An off-duty ranger was busy trying to keep people safe and call for help at the same time.

And then, onto laundry and shower.  I changed into clean clothes so that my dirty ones could wash while I showered.  Hot and sweaty from high humidity, I was looking forward to that shower – more than anything in a long time.  Put the clothes in the washer and discovered that the showers had just closed for 1.5 hours, for cleaning.  I nearly freaked but collected myself, went into the bathroom and poured cold water over my face and arms until I cooled down.  And, then came out to the car to do a post.  Except that I was trying to charge electronics and ran the battery down.  Well, got my handy charger out and it worked again but now I need to charge it before I mess up again.

Will no doubt be back out looking for pups tonight.  They saw a black and grey this morning and Laurie said they are very tiny, but look healthy.

I believe that Bob, the dead bison on Blacktail, might have finally gotten some attention, but am not sure.  Will report more later.