Bears, Bears, Everywheres'

Bears, Bears, Everywheres'

 

 

Spent last Friday evening and Saturday in Yellowstone. Had a great time checking out the new areas that opened up that Friday morning. The road from Canyon to Fishing Bridge and then on to Cody Wyoming opened for through travel. I left Friday afternoon and hit Yellowstone's west entrance at about 4:00 pm. Things were busy right from the start as I ran across two bald eagles just a few miles in from the entrance.

The male was watching guard over his companion who head was barely visible.

It is interesting how you can tell the male from the female or at least I think I can.

Check out the eye shadow and well groomed hair on the female.

Here's the male with his wild, ungroomed hair sending out a very load call.

He had a bad case of the heebee jeebee's and did some crazy contortions.

I was talking to someone next to me when the male took off. I just noticed him out of the corner of my eye and I just reached over and started pushing the shutter button. I happened to get a couple of good shots.

This one is pretty cool. Shows his wingspan in a different view.

After the Bald Eagle show I headed for the Haven valley and then Fishing bridge. I ran into a couple of photo friends and shot the bull for a few minutes and then out of nowhere Blaze appeared. She is the mother of two well known cubs "Raspberry" and "Hobo",  4 year old and 2 year cubs now.

Here are a few pictures of Blaze.

 She came down a hill towards us about a half hour before sunset.

After some time she walked to an overlook and watched the sunset for a minute.

After a half hour or so of taking pictures I got in the car to head to the cabin back in Island Park. Just about a quarter mile down the road Blaze crossed the road to the left where a couple of Buffalo were grazing. I thought - It would be cool to get a bear and a grizzly in the same picture, so i pulled off the side of the road and got out and tried to take a shot of both of them but didn't do very well because I was a little nervous about the buffalo.

 

I turned back to the car to get a different lens and all of a sudden the buffalo charged towards the bear. Blaze took off with "blazing" speed with the buffalo hot on her tail.

Lets just say that what they say about bears and buffalo being able to hit speeds of around 30+ miles per hour are true. The dirt was flying as they headed away from me and around a downed tree. This all happened in about two seconds.


That was a great end for a short day. I headed back and got to bed around 11:00pm. I headed back in the morning around 4:30 am on Saturday and hit the Hayden Valley around sunrise. I saw a great shot opportunity and pulled over when I saw some sand hill cranes and swans in the beautiful morning light.

Got to the Mudd Volcano pots just in time to see a couple of bears but they where a ways off. Continued on towards fishing bridge and saw a few cars pulled into a turn out. I followed a trail in the snow and found this grizzly working on a buffalo carcass that must have broke thru some ice on the edge of the Yellowstone river and must not have been able to get out. This Grizzly stayed in the water for an hour or more.

 The ravens are waiting their turn

After shooting that grizz I headed to the area where Blaze was the evening before and saw nothing so I headed back towards the mudd volcano area and found another grizzly moving along the river towards the buffalo carcass area. Got some great photos as he crossed the road right in front of about 20 (people) of us. He was literally to close for even my 300mm telephoto as he filled the entire frame of the camera. Would have been nice to have that second camera with a shorter lens but i got some great shots.

 Check out the claws

Here he gets into some great light

He headed down an embankment and to the river and took a just plowed through the slow moving water just below me. 

Gave me an interesting look as he went

No pictures but on the way home i saw another grizzly moving up river. Word of the carcass must have spread fast.


It was a great day and a half in Yellowstone. I swear there is a magnet in my soul and one in Yellowstone that is pulling me back constantly. It was a great day for Grizzlies but still no Coy (cubs). Oh well, that's a great reason to head back next weekend.