Here’s a close up of the young bull moose I saw just outside the entrance to Yellowstone in Silver Gate, Montana. You can see how deep the snow was already in late December. The areas surrounding Yellowstone get about 10 feet of snow a year, but due to the park’s unique geographic positioning, it can get up to 50 feet a year.
The indri is the largest remaining lemur in existence, standing just shy of four feet tall. It is famous for its very loud and distinctive song which can usually be heard early in the morning throughout its range in northeastern Madagascar.
Click to hear what it sounds like:
(sound file © 2000 David Parks and Larry Barnes http://www.mobot.org/mobot/madagascar/)
Due to weather conditions I wasn’t able to get to the more thermal areas of Yellowstone. That being said, Soda Butte Creek in the Lamar Valley always had a bit of steam coming off the surface of the water and I was able to get a few landscape shots of bison grazing, like this one here just after sunset.
A quick break from Yellowstone to check back in on the polar bears.
The reason mid October to mid November is the best time to go to northern Canada to observe polar bears is because they are all waiting around for the ice to freeze on the Hudson Bay so that they can go hunt seals. In the meantime, they’ll do anything to kill time, including rolling around in a pile of dead grass, like this guy here, providing plenty of photo opportunities.
No matter how many red fox I photograph, I always get excited when I see one out there running around doing its thing. Definitely one of my favorite animals. This one hardly acknowledged that I was there as it ran by me in search of breakfast.
Bison are the most conspicuous animals in Yellowstone, often times blocking the road as they move from one area of the park to another in search of new places to graze. This guy seemed to be the leader of a small herd that greeted me almost immediately on day one of my visit. With his goatee and horns, I thought he looked a bit satanic — you know, if Satan was hairy and hung out in the snow. Those of you who work with me, however, might agree that he looks more like Dante our sound engineer.
I spotted this cow and bull moose just outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone last Thursday afternoon in the small town of Silver Gate, Montana — probably a mother and her grown son. They were just about the same size, but eventually he’ll grow to be much larger than her and each year he’ll grow a bigger and bigger rack of antlers, which he’ll drop annually sometime in the winter. This guy’s antlers were pretty small, giving an indication of his age, but a fully mature bull can have a rack that is 6 feet across and weighs up to 90 pounds.
I didn’t see any coyotes for the first two days that I was in Yellowstone this past weekend and then suddenly, on the third day they seemed to be everywhere. This guy was working on what was left of a wolf kill (probably an elk) that was buried under about four feet of snow.
I finally made it out to Yellowstone at about 2 AM on Thursday morning. Not exactly the 7 days I was hoping for, but a good 3 days in the park nonetheless. I wasn’t able to get any shots of wolves — although I saw some at quite a distance — but I did photograph fox, bison, elk, moose, coyote, bighorn, and a new species for me (at least to get photos of) the American marten. Also called a pine marten, I’ve seen a few before, but usually just a flash as they scurry off into the woods. Martens are in the mustelid family, which includes weasels and otters. They live in trees and on the ground and have extra large foot pads which makes them good in the snow. More on these guys in a future post.