USA 2018 (14) Wolves!

Tags

American dipper, American magpie, American raven, Bald eagle, Bison, bison fur, Bozeman, coyote, Gardiner, geological dyke, Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, ice jam, Liberty Cap Mammoth, Mammoth Hot Springs, moose, Pronghorn, Roosevelt Arch, Tinker's Hill, Tinker's Hill Cemetery, travertine terrace, Wapiti Lake wolf pack, wolf, wolf reintroduction, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park, |National Museum of Wildlife Art

USA 2018 (14), Wolves!  Yes, on this last day of our Yellowstone ‘safari’, we did see wolves.  It was slightly less cold (about minus 23ºC/minus 9ºF) as we left Cooke City on Wednesday 22nd February, making an even earlier start, at 6.30 a.m.

The last wolf pack in Yellowstone Park was killed in the 1920s.  On 12th January 1995 the first wolves for decades were released here, and, by the end of 1996, 31 of them had been relocated from Canada to the park.  They and their descendants have changed the ecosystem, with an enormously beneficial effect on fauna and flora, there now being a top predator where there was none for decades, rebalancing nature.  Here is a 4’34” video on how. (Another, on a wild wolf playing with domestic dogs, shows just how huge the wolf is.) [Three weeks later. There’s a snippet in March’s ‘BBC Wildlife Magazine about this phenomenon. ‘Predators don’t just eat prey animals, they scare the hell out of them, and this fear factor alone is enough to shape ecosystems. After wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park, elk were free to forage wherever their tastebuds led them, including into lush but risky riverbank habitats. This led to the devastation of specialist riparian vegetation. When wolves were reintroduced, the elk looked elsewhere and the riverbanks recovered.’]

Once more heading for Mammoth Hot Springs, our first stop was to watch a moose eating its favourite food, willow – recovered thanks to the wolves perhaps. I got interested in an American dipper (nothing like European ones) by a river and I walked back a few yards to take a closer look.  Imagine my astonishment on turning round after a few minutes, at seeing this! Of course any coyote likes an easy surface to walk on, and this one walked right on by me, and through my companions by the vehicles. We next stopped to observe a young bison’s carcase being recycled, about half a mile from where we were on the road.

All very symmetrical: American ravens to the left, a coyote on either side of the carcase, and American magpies to the right

By midday we had reached and gone through Mammoth, turning north to Tinker’s Hill, Gardiner, and the North Entrance to the NP.  This is the Roosevelt Arch, (1903).

On the other, entrance, side of the Arch, there is engraved, ‘For the benefit and enjoyment of the people’.

We were now technically out of the Park, but still well within the wider ecosystem of Yellowstone. I wandered around a little, while telescopes were being set up.

There are worse locations for a cemetery.

Tim encouraged me to feel this bison fur he had found an a fence.  It was so soft!

Whimsical landscape on Sprinter window

And I joined the others, patiently seeking a wolf pack known to hang out around here.

 

YES! Not with the naked eye, but with binoculars, cameras and ‘scopes. The Wapiti Lake pack I believe, itself inside the Park boundary.  About two miles away. (Just very occasionally – very occasionally – I wish I carried around one of those paparazzi cameras with enormously long lenses, instead of the small thing I wear slung around my neck.)

Here – really – they have moved to the further ridge and are lying down

There is even a black wolf or two there…

 

In due course they disappeared over the ridge.

”Turn around! Pronghorn!” We had seen a very graceful sculpture of a pronghorn at the National Museum of Wildlife Art at Jackson Hole.  Here were a whole crowd of them in the flesh. Such delicate creatures, not at all fazed by our presence. (They are sometimes called pronghorn antelope, but they are deer. Most photos slightly over-exposed.) It was back to Mammoth for lunch, and a look at the Lower Travertine Terraces. 

The extinct cone is known as the Liberty Cap, after the cap worn by colonial patriots in the Revolutionary War

 

Then we had a serious drive back north to Bozeman, where we were to catch our planes home the next day.  We stopped briefly at the Roosevelt Arch, but saw no wolves this time, but (apologies to those of a squeamish nature) I thought this bison poo there was really  artistic. It was too fast a drive for any real photography, though I did manage to get these bald eagles. We also saw white-tailed deer, and some bison, and I noticed a fabulous geological dyke.  Looking around at a comfort stop by the Yellowstone River, Drew told us that this was evidence that there had been an ice jam somewhere nearby. Approaching Bozeman I took a final picture of the mountains.

I think the form at the top of the mountain is a cirque.

It was minus 10ºC/plus 14ºF when we arrived at Bozeman.  The leaders commented that this had been the coldest trip they had ever known.

 

Most of my companions were going straight home.  I was to embark on the third and final part of my journey the following day – after a lie-in!

USA 2018 (6), Jackson Hole, afternoon.

Tags

Bison, Brown bear, Carl Rungius, cervus canadensis, cervus elaphus, Cougar, elk, Georges Gardet, Grand Teton National Park, Grand Tetons, Grizzly bear, Jackson Hole, Jackson Visitor Center, Landseer, moose, Mountian lion, Mule deer, National Elk Refuge, Nicola Hicks, Pronghorn, Puma, red deer, Robert F Kuhn, Shepard Alonzo Mount, Wapiti, wolf, |National Museum of Wildlife Art

USA 2018 (6), Jackson Hole, afternoon. After lunch in its restaurant, we had a guided tour, by a volunteer, of some of the exhibits at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Not nearly long enough for many of us, but much better than nothing, a really beautiful museum.  There were sculptures and paintings, inside and outside. (Brrrrr – we had divested ourselves of outerwear!) Here are just a few that particularly caught my eye, with references where I noted them.

Moose (American), elk (English)

Mountain lion/puma/cougar

Brown/grizzly bear

Pronghorn deer

This dramatic picture of a bison coming out of the mist occupied a whole wall. I’m tempted to think that the mist is that of the thermal heat in Yellowstone which we were to see later.

Sir Edwin Landseer, ‘The Deer Pass’ 1852. who saw a sphinx in the mountain behind the deer.  But did he get the colour of the deer/elk right?

‘Long Island Frog’, 1860 by Shepard Alonzo Mount

‘Pas de Deux’, 1975 by Robert F Kuhn

‘Old Baldface’ c. 1935, by Carl Rungius. (Bears are in a kind of hibernation at this time of year, so we saw none.)

‘The Gangmaster’, c 1020, by Carl Rungius (German)

‘Combat des cerfs’, 1910, Georges Gardet (French)

(Hastily taken as we left) ‘Little Bear’, 2015, by Nicola Hicks, (British)

‘Midnight Serenade’, Robert F Kuhn

I don’t have details for this picture, but even when it was painted, Bison no longer roamed the plains in these numbers. The painting occupies a whole wall.

As we left the museum, a few of us saw some mule deer in the distance, so-called because of their huge round ears. Afterwards we were taken to a viewpoint of the Grand Teton Range, sadly, as so frequently, topped by cloud, so not seen in their full splendour. A panoramic view makes a straight road crooked, so here’s a brief video.

It just so happens that this interesting story on the geology of the Tetons, including a fabulous sunrise photo of them clear of clouds, appeared on Facebook yesterday.

Then it was on to the National Elk Refuge.  Elk/Wapiti (cervus canadensis) are closely related to our (European) red deer (cervus elaphus). They migrate northwards each year for the winter, and many come to this national refuge where they are safe from hunting.Had there been more snow we would have been taken to see them in horse-drawn sleighs.  As it was we went in horse-drawn carts.

Our horses

After a short time at the Jackson Visitor Center…

Mule deer seen from a viewing platform.  See the big ears.

… we returned to our hotel for a short rest, and then went to dinner at another Jackson restaurant.  Because I had arrived so late, I had no other chance to see anything of the town, as we were off the following morning northward for good.

USA 2018 (5), Jackson Hole, morning

Tags

coyote, elk, Grand Teton National Park, Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, Jackson Hole, Jackson WY, John D Rockefeller Memorial Parkway, moose, Natural Habitat, trumpeter swan, wolf, Yellowstone National Park, |National Museum of Wildlife Art

USA 2018, (5) Jackson Hole, morning. Some years previously, I had seen a series of programmes on the BBC about Yellowstone National Park through the year.  And ever since then I had wanted to visit in the winter – all that snow and beauty principally, but with great wildlife as well.  In the month before I actually left on this trip, there had been a further series of BBC programmes on the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, following particular creatures through the year, and dealing also with the extraordinary geology of the place.  These programmes provided a wonderful pre-trip briefing.

Jackson Hole (hole in effect means valley in this context) is at the southern end of Grand Teton National Park, itself just to the south of Yellowstone National Park, the two joined by a small area called the John D Rockefeller Jr Memorial Parkway.

We had an early start on Friday 16th February. This was the view from my hotel window as I rose. Given the attraction of the deep piles of snow I had seen on those BBC programmes, I confess to having been a little disappointed, even as I was being driven from the airport the previous day, that there was not more of it, and this feeling persisted through this day. (Following days more than compensated!)

At the start of the trip the 14 of us – all American bar me – travelled in two of these Sprinter vans, each of us with a window seat.  Our Natural Habitat leaders were Drew and Jeremy.

(At our final dinner)

Our first stop in the Grand Teton NP was to look at the surroundings, and particularly at a couple of trumpeter swans, initially curled up and asleep in the icy water. It was not easy to get a decent photo through the wire. What’s this? A wolf already?  No, a coyote – but an interesting sighting nevertheless. (I just had to stop calling them jackals.)

A drive-by photo of the elk herd we were to visit in the afternoon

We drove to the parking lot of the National Museum of Wildlife Art and stood for ages looking at this view. 

Close-up

Some managed to see as a far off speck a wolf. The leaders swore it was so, and I believe them.  They were giving a particular telegraph pole as a reference point but I think I must have been concentrating on the wrong one.  Actually, right at the end, I do believe I saw the wolf for five seconds, barely that, as it ran behind the buildings – but I certainly didn’t manage to get a photo of it.

 

We drove on to a pond. Here we saw, but I got no decent photos of, goldeneye, bufflehead, gadwall, and a bald eagle.  As we drove on, wolf tracks were spied. We had stopped by the side of a river, where we were delighted to see a moose, browsing on willow, its favourite food. Moose (called elk in British English, explanation here, which leaves me even more confused) are far from rare, but you do not see them every day.

Our next stop again caused ripples of excitement as we thought we might be seeing a wolf, and it took a long time before it was agreed that it was ‘only’ a coyote. It appeared  to have a broken jaw, but seemed to be managing to survive OK, unless of course the injury had only just happened.

Returning towards Jackson, we stopped when we saw more moose, which came very close to us in our vans, and crossed the road right by us. Lunch was taken in the restaurant of the National Museum of Wildlife Art, which we would tour in the afternoon.