When I was a kid if we felt like being mean to my little brother we called him a weasel. I never really thought about it as a derogatory term until I saw a real weasel. They are so cute!! I really should go back and tell my brother it was a compliment.
Yesterday Simon, who writes so eloquently for Yellowstone Daily, asked me which member of the weasel family I liked the most. I had never thought about it but I couldn’t narrow it down to one species. I mean think about it. Could you choose a favorite between otters, badgers, weasels, martens, ferrets, minks and wolverines? I love them all! I think photographers have a “thing” about weasels and their relatives because they are usually very difficult to photograph. I have been lucky enough to spend a bit of time filming otters and badger but I have more wolf and grizzly footage than all of my weasel, marten, ferret (zero), mink (zero) and wolverine (zero – I’ve only seen the back half of one in the wild) footage combined.
So if I do get lucky enough to find out where a weasel is hanging out I will sit in that spot all day. Which is what I did yesterday. The good thing about yesterday was spending time with Deby, Simon, and Jill. We had a grand time although the sun and heat weren’t so fun. And we got some weasel photos!! Although I got a lot of “see that spot, that is where a weasel was a second ago” (My reaction time is really bad), I also got a few weasel clips.
The first one wasn’t so great. I got the weasel all right, but also got a lot of grass.
The second one was a little better because there was less grass but it was only about a third of a weasel and still had grass in its face.
Finally I got the last one. The whole weasel!! There is grass but at least it is not in front of the weasel’s face. Not perfect, but it is the best I’ve gotten in years of trying.
The area where the weasel was also hosts a lot of mountain bluebirds. They are such beautiful birds and they have such a soft, sweet call.
After leaving the weasel to go home I saw a bunch of mayfly spinners mating above the water of Yellowstone Lake. I have seen large congregations of mayflies over my 30 plus years of fly fishing but this bunch went on for miles. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and had to stop and film them. The slow motion movie I did looks better than the following screen grabs but they are better than nothing.
On the way to the weasel I saw Hayden Valley Girl and her two cubs and on the way home, when it was almost dark, I saw who I think was Scarface. I’m not positive it was him but I am positive it was a grizzly. So a 4 grizzly day, a weasel and great company. I wouldn’t ask for more!!
P.S. I wrote the above and then saw Deby’s most recent post. Sorry for the duplication on the weasel photo!
If i had to choose which weasel family, it would have to be otters but they are all adorable. Thanks for sharing your day with us!