YELLOWSTONE - WOLVES & GRIZZLIES!!

Kathi and I just finished several great days in Yellowstone National Park. This site is truly one of the most incredible protected areas I have ever visited. There were many people but it still was an outstanding experience. For me, two of the things I most wanted to see were wolves and grizzly bears. I had seen both before a number of times but with these mammals - more is always better!

On our first evening we had distant views of a very dark Wolf and a Grizzly grazing in a meadow. They were exciting moments but I was really hoping for a killer view of both. On our second full day we opted for an earlier start - hoping that we might luck into a close encounter with either species before the roads got busy. Not twenty minutes after we entered the park, there was an almost white Wolf walking along the roadside right beside us!!! We watched as the Wolf walked steadily along the roadside for several minutes. I drove alongside shooting images from the car window as I kept pace driving. The Wolf was carrying food in its mouth (looked like a bunch of bones and meat from a kill) and probably heading back to a den to feed some pups. Here are two of my best images below:









The Wolf sighting alone made our visit to Yellowstone a huge success. However, we had one more memorable moment to come. About an hour later we were driving northeast of Madison corner when we spotted a huge old Grizzly (male?) walking towards the road. It was perfect timing as the Grizzly slowly walked towards us following the edge of a meadow, turning over small logs and searching for food. He was really beat up, with scarred ears, eyes and a large wound on his shoulder - an old warrior to be sure! As he moved along we slowed closed the ground between him and us until he was only about 15 feet away! It was a thrilling moment as he crossed the road right in front of us, his breathe steaming in the cool clear morning air. We were the first car to find him but by the time he crossed the road there were about four other cars on the scene, including one that was appeared panicked as he crossed right behind them!

ALBERTA - more great mammals

One of the main targets of our mountain extension was to see bears. We managed to get great views of 6 BLACK BEARS including a mother with two cubs. But everyone wanted to see a GRIZZLY BEAR. On our second last afternoon we came across a beautiful blond GRIZZLY working a hillside across a creek. We had good binocular views and spectacular scope views for at least twenty minutes. Here is a digiscoped picture of the GRIZZLY.



Compare the colour of this bear to the dark GRIZZLY that Paul and I had seen about a week earlier on the same stretch of Banff National Park.


The good luck with mammals continued as we started our second boreal and prairie adventure. We added RED FOX and heard TIMBER WOLVES at close range near Cold Lake. In addition we have encountered dozens of COYOTES over the last several weeks. This one was one of the most co-operative I have ever seen as most turn tail as soon as the car stops. This one stood his ground and I got some fine images.

ALBERTA - BEARS

Paul and I spent June 4th doing a mad dash from Canmore to Jasper and back to search for bears. Well I say bears, but our real target was not Black Bear, but Grizzly Bear - a much more difficult critter to see.

We had a great day and the weather was much better than predicted. We had pretty good luck with Black Bears finding six during the day. Here are images of two different individuals, both of which were grazing on grass!





One of the best wildlife finding techniques here is to simply watch for the jams of cars that occur when a bear or other critter appear along the roadside. We lucked onto a GRIZZLY BEAR this way. However it was on the move and quite distant. Soon the mob of cars disappeared as the bear moved out of sight. We tried to predict where the bear might turn up and to our amazement it did exactly as we expected. We tracked it down to where it had to walk along a narrow edge of the road and I was able to get this image by the edge of a lake.




It soon decided to cross the road right behind us and I managed to get some images as it climbed the bank at the side of the road. What a thrill to see this incredible animal at such close range! Look at the size of those claws on the front paws!!!