Yellowstone in Winter - 2013

This week my family did our annual (second) winter Yellowstone National Park trip. Just one day over and one day back again this year although we said that we would like to make it a bit longer next year for the second year in a row. One of my goals for the trip was to spend some time trying to get photos of American Dippers along the Lamar River. I tried last year but wasn't happy with the results so I modified my approach and tried again this year. I am not completely satisfied with the results this time either, but they are better than last year. Maybe I will have it figured out in time for the next trip.

I only got to spend a short amount of time with this particular bird. It was fun watching him jump off the ice and disappear into the moving water and a short while later leap out of the water with what appeared to be small green caddisfly larvae pulled from their sandy cases. They were eaten quickly and the bird returned to the ice edge for another round of foraging.

This stretch of the Lamar River has a pretty high density of American Dippers and they appear to each occupy about a 10 meter portion of open water. There was also a small flock of Barrow's Goldeneyes near where I was, but I didn't get a chance to get any photos of them. Next year!

I did find time to take a few shots of this Bighorn ram too. He must have been pretty active earlier this fall - both sides of his horns were broomed pretty good.

Montana Bighorn Sheep

Last weekend we took a trip to Yellowstone National Park. As we entered the park just south of Gardiner I told the boys to be on the lookout for Bighorn Sheep on the cliffs east of the highway. Crean soon spotted a ram high on top of the cliff and Benton spotted a few more on our way out of the park later that afternoon.

The following morning we found a ewe and her lamb from this spring feeding on some shrubs right along the highway. The best view we got though was on our way home just south of Gardiner along the north side of the highway. A small band of sheep were bedded down just off the highway and we got good looks at these animals.

One of the ewes had two radio collars on her neck. I am not sure why she was double collared or what study she was part of, but I will try to find out.

One of the rams took a particular interest in her.