Wild Memories Photography Tours

I did a quick report last night. Tonight I want to go back and fill in some gaps.

First of all here are a couple of photos of two of Rosie’s cubs crossing a creek right after they crossed the bridge a couple of days ago.

We started our day at the beginning, the beginning of the north end of the park that is. There is a lot of construction going on at the north entrance as they are redoing the whole entrance. It is a mess right now and not as many elk or pronghorn are hanging around there as normal. There is one thing going on with the elk that I don’t understand though. There are a bunch of piles of bark mulch they are using to slow erosion. We have seen female elk standing on the mulch piles and eating some of it. I don’t understand what could be in there that they find good to eat.

There has also been one large male pronghorn hanging around the entrance. He is one of the calmest and tamest pronghorns I have ever seen. And he is pretty.

We spent a lot of time with Rosie and her cubs up near her old stomping’ grounds just below Calcite Springs. Most of the photos were distant but it was really nice seeing them where I first “met” them, especially knowing that she will most probably be kicking them out very soon. She is still a great mother and even let them nurse for a while. I know she has chased off at least 2 would be suitors but who knows what will happen next time or the time after that.

In the middle of the day we visited the kestrels. They may have eggs but I am pretty sure they don’t have chicks because we never see them bring food to the nest.

On the way home we stopped at the pikas for a few minutes. They were as cute as always.

As we went through Mammoth we saw a number of people looking up in the trees near the visitor center. The two baby great horned owls have fledged but were behind limbs. The adult male was a little lower so we got a photo of him.