One of the nice things about Yellowstone is that many visitors come here and don’t have the time to explore some really beautiful places outside the park. Some of our favorite places are the many rivers and lakes of southwest Montana. Two of those lakes are Wade and Cliff Lakes. They are adjacent to each other in National Forest land. Wade Lake has a few cabins with no TV, no internet, no cell phone service, and limited electricity. It also has some beautiful rufous hummingbirds. We stayed in one of the cabins for several nights and had some of the most relaxing days visiting with friends and watching the hummingbirds.
On the way out of Yellowstone we got to watch an osprey eating a fish on some logs in the Madison River. It was a rare opportunity to see an osprey at eye level repeatedly pulling chunks of meat off a fish and swallowing them whole. Her crop was really full by the time we left.
Have you ever spent much time watching hummingbirds? If they weighed 5 pounds I would be scared to death of them. The are some of the most aggressive birds I know. There was one rufous male who was particularly aggressive as he chased other hummingbirds from “his” feeder. He spent hours sitting on various perches near the feeder ready to dive bomb any other hummingbird who dared to approach the feeder. He rarely let any other hummingbirds feed. He even chased a baby black-chinned hummingbird.
Right outside the back of our cabin a robin quietly sat on her second set of eggs of the summer. Two days after we got there her eggs hatched. We watched both her and the dad making endless trips to find bugs to feed to their new brood. One of the neatest things was watching the adults after they fed the babies. I think they must have been in love. They just sat their and stared at the babies. It was sweet.
On the way back into the park we found a family of otters, a mama and 2 big babies, on the Madison River. They were methodically moving upstream fishing. They spent a little time playing but mostly they fished. We didn’t recognize the fish in the mama’s mouth at first because it was so big for its species. It was the biggest sculpin I have ever seen.
Those are some of the most amazing hummingbird photos I have seen. And, so glad you found otters on the way home. Thank you Judy!
Thank you Deby! Hope your toe feels better today.
I love those otter pictures. It seems they are becoming fewer and harder to find each year. Great shots and you already know I love the hummers.
Thank you! I agree with you, otters are getting tougher to find, but I may just think that because they weren’t at Trout Lake this year. That makes me realize how lucky we were to have them in the past up there.