It's About the (RV) Journey....: Another "wild" morning.....

Dawn and Dusk....the best times to observe wildlife. We especially like getting up early (well, not really...but the experience is well worth it!) to see what we can see. We have been having such a good time at Hayden Valley, well known for wildlife observation.

early morning...around sunrise

the best time in the park

really magical

good morning to you

This was the scene as we were waiting for the fog to lift so we could spot bears and wolves. The Yellowstone River is really wide and slow here in this area, and geese, ducks and pelicans can be seen here. A little farther downstream, the river narrows and the bears and elk can be seen in the river or along the banks.

flock of geese

through the fog

up up and away

nice shot!

Once the fog started to lift, we could see a couple of bears on the hillside. This appeared to be a mom and her youngster grazing on the hillside.

Mama bear....its still cold out here!

Mom and youngster

grazing on the hillside

pretty far away

moving along the hillside

Wildlife observers lined the roadway at various viewpoints to try to catch a glimpse of the bears. We had heard there were also 2 wolves spotted by the river bank, but we did not see them ourselves. There are many hills and valleys in the meadows, so its very hard to see everything that is in there. There could be bears or wolves behind any of those little rolling hills. A point to remember when hiking through a meadow like this one.

wildlife enthusiasts lined up with their gear

lots of grizzly activity

this guy crossing the river

another one crossing the river

to get to the other side!

As it gets a little later in the morning, more and more people show up to try to catch a glimpse of these great animal sightings. However, some just go a little too far. Maybe they are not yet totally awake, or they don't get it...these are wild animals? So about a hundred of us were watching a bear on the hillside, and it turned and went behind a ridge so we couldn't see it any more. A dad and his son took matters into their own hands, and decided they'd take a walk over the ridge. All of us were aghast...you could just hear us all saying stuff like "Oh no....get back...what are you doing?".....when finally a ranger was able to alert them and they headed back to the road. WOW is all I can say!

another bear!

this one kind of close to the road

just grazing in the shadows

finally walking off

Enlarge to see the dad/son trying to find the bear! Yikes!

The other thing that we are learning is that you must always be looking around...in all directions....because you just never know. We were watching one side of the street, when right behind us, over the ridge, came another grizzly. We watched from a pretty far distance as it crossed the road! It went very close to a whole group of people! The ranger was standing right there, but you could hear the whole crowd gasp!

from the meadow behind us!

this bear was on a mission to get to the other side of the meadow

walking up and over the ridge

close up

what? Here he comes...

closer to the street

wow...crossed over!

made it to the other side!

heading out

So much activity! Tom was fooling around with his spotting scope, trying to work out putting a camera on it. He had a little success with the movie camera, but it was really difficult to focus. There are lots of people out here that are very interested in viewing wildlife....as you can see from the crowds. Its almost like watching a baseball game or something like that, because everyone is talking with each other, but we are all looking through our binoculars or scopes while talking. No one is making eye contact with each other. Its kinda funny.

setting up scope

fine tuning

the crowd we were with

the ranger was here too

At one point, two young bears were playing in the river. It was awesome to watch. They were splashing each other and whacking each other with their paws. Must have been siblings. Then they ran off on the other side of the river. Too bad I can't get better pictures. This is not something to be witnessed close up. Too bad I don't have one of those monster lens...ahhahaa.

two sibling youngsters putting on a show

splashing each other in the river

had enough water....running on to other things!

So nature, you just never know, right? Like I said, we are learning that you always have to be looking around in all directions. We were all pretty much watching the bears across the street when a buffalo comes walking down the street. Can you believe it decided to come up right where we were all standing and just walk through. Thankfully, the ranger was there. He told us all to head out...give the bison some space....and it just walked right on by. He's the boss!!

Here comes a buffalo walking down the street

he's coming closer! This way???

Yes...he's coming this way...time to move out!

don't look now...but he's right behind you

time to move it out!

okay...the buffalo gets his turf back!

you just never know!

the ranger keeping us all safe from ourselves!

We continued watching across the street for just a bit longer. We noticed the elk in the

back field suddenly grouped together, like they were protecting themselves from something. We looked for wolves, but did not see any. The next thing you know, they all headed into the river. Not sure what that was about. Insects? A predator that we couldn't see? Or maybe it just suddenly got to hot for them? I don't know. Interesting though.

elk suddenly formed a tight circle

heading to the river

aahhh, made it to the river

refreshing

Around 10, we decided to call it a day. We had gotten up at 5, and had quite a bit of excitement for the day. On the way back home, I had to take another scenic shot of this elk. He seemed to be posing. On examining my pictures, I noticed a guy walking through the meadow. I guess the elk was paying attention to that! There were two elk there, and it just seemed so photogenic, what with the flowers and all. Haha.