Day 5 – The Neighbors
(If you didn’t see yesterday’s post this is a continuation of a story about the Yellowstone Picnic Area foxes. Read the previous 4 posts to catch up.)
The YPA foxes had a number of neighbors. Some they chased away like the raven that kept trying to steal their ground squirrels, while it wasn’t at the nearby picnic area begging for handouts or trying to steal the human’s lunches. I thought I was pretty alert to the raven until one day it got my package of mint flavored Oreos. Fortunately it didn’t understand Oreo packages and spilled all of the Oreos as it flew off. It did the same thing one day with someone’s potato chips. Cookies and potato chips scattered everywhere. I picked them up as quickly as I could as it is illegal to feed animals in Yellowstone and because I was embarrassed that it happened when I wasn’t paying attention.
Big horn sheep were frequent visitors as well. Sometimes they just grazed in the area and ignored the foxes and sometimes they watched the foxes with a look of real fascination, or maybe puzzlement. I wasn’t sure if the sheep were trying to figure out what the foxes were doing or if they had never seen foxes before and were trying to decide which planet they were from.
Another group of neighbors were the photographers. I had a chance to catch up with friends and meet some of the nicest people there while the foxes slept. One cold day a guy walked around with a big pot of coffee and cups giving it away to anyone that wanted it. When he got to me I said “No thank you, I don’t like coffee, but that is really nice of you.” He asked me what I did like and I told him “hot chocolate.” A few minutes later he was back with a cup of hot chocolate! It makes me feel bad that I don’t even remember his name. But what a sweetie!
The photo below will give you some idea of the number of photographers. As you can see they are all facing different directions because the foxes were sleeping. When the foxes were out there were more photographers than you see here. One thing I would like to mention: I spent the better part of nine days with these guys (and they were mostly guys.) Sometimes finding a place to photograph the foxes was hard because of the number of people. During that whole time everyone I heard was extremely nice, respectful of the foxes, and stayed the proper distance from the foxes. There was a ranger or two hanging around the first day or two but then I think they realized we were all following the rules and moved on to other areas. It was an extremely pleasant experience. Both humans and foxes at their best!
Love the top picture of the sheep looking at the foxes – they appear to be either totally confused or in awe of those foxes!!!
People were well-behaved and respectful, that is true. Those big horn visitors were a riot. And, I had forgotten about the pesky raven. Thanks for the smiles.