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.

Since I’ve been delayed in my trip to Yellowstone for a few days due to yesterday’s storm, I thought I’d send one more photo of the day before the New Year.

It was just about a year ago that I stumbled upon a deserted stretch of beach north of San Simeon, California inhabited by a herd of elephant seals. When I first got to the beach I noticed several pregnant females so I went back about a week later hoping to photograph the newly born pups. All in all, I saw about seven babies, all a much darker color than the adults, including this guy here who couldn’t have been more than a week old

There was a large fenced in area in the backyard of the Seal River Lodge that we had access to whenever we weren’t out hiking. Occasionally, a curious bear (usually a new one to the area) would approach the fence, drawn by all the new smells and strange looking creatures. It was a great opportunity for us to view the bears at very close range. Sort of a reverse zoo situation where we were in the cage and the bears were observing us. This was a relatively small bear. He walked up and down the length of the fence for a while, sniffing the air and biting at the wire. Notice in the background the plywood and nails that circle the perimeter of the lodge. This was to keep the bears from getting too close to the windows. Undeterred, several of them found a way to flatten the nails with the sides of their paws and we experienced a few surprise Peeping Toms while we were inside warming up at the end of the day. After dark, the lodge staff would cover up all the lower windows with plywood to avoid any accidents.

Not much photographically here, but I wanted to post a few pictures of the Northern Lights for those who have never seen them. We weren’t allowed out of the penned in backyard at night due to the danger of lurking polar bears, so I couldn’t get proper landscape shots of the lights, but pretty cool to see them none the less. They only appeared on one of the nights that we were up at the lodge and weren’t all that strong. We were told it’s been an off year to view them. Also known as the Aurora Borealis, here is what wikipedia has to say: an aurora is a natural light display in the sky, particularly in the polar regions, caused by the collision of charged particles directed by the Earth’s magnetic field.

A young red fox waits for its mother to return to the den with breakfast. This one was taken down in Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware.

When I first started researching the polar bear trip, I googled “eye to eye with polar bears.” This led me to the Seal River Heritage Lodge. Along with its sister lodge, also on the Canadian tundra, it seems to be the only place in the world where you can safely photograph bears at eye level while on foot. The vast majority of polar bear trips are from large “tundra buggy” vehicles where you’re 20 feet up, or from a ship, also looking down from a great height (not a very good angle at all for photography). You stay on the ship or on the tundra buggy the whole time you’re viewing the bears. We hiked with the bears. Sometimes getting extremely close. For safety, we stayed together, all 15 or so of us. If the bear moved toward us, the first line of defense was for the guide to throw rocks. Bears hate to be touched and the rocks really seemed to freak them out. When that didn’t work — and it didn’t a few times — the guide would use a little gun to shoot what was essentially a fire cracker at the bear. This did the trick the few times the bears came too close. The third line of defense is a shotgun, but the guide said that thankfully he’s never had to resort to that. The experience really was incredible to be able to get that close to bears in the wild, and from the ground. One of the guys in our group had done a tundra buggy tour five years earlier and said that the two experiences don’t even come close. For this photo, I was laying face down on the ice, camera on the ground, about 40 feet away. The bear kept a watchful eye on us as he settled in for a nap.

The constant rising and falling of the tide, along with the freezing temperature creates a landscape of ice covered rock formations along the coastline of the Hudson Bay. These three images were taken at low tide early one morning before we went on our first hike in search of bears. As it turned out, a hike wasn’t necessary. I had to quickly grab my backpack, tripod and other gear as three adult males came walking directly toward us.

It was very, very cold on this particular morning. Very cold. And windy. But as much as we were all doing our best to protect ourselves from the weather, the bears seemed to be enjoying it. Every time the wind whipped up, sending granules of snow flying through the air, this bear just raised his head, stuck his face into the wind and took it all in.