Yellowstone Diary 2020 – Dance of Light Photography

2020 Junction Butte Puppies

zxcvbnm1WP — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 15:48:11 +0000

When an adult brings food back to the puppies, located in that year’s “day care center,” the puppies will spot the adult and come running to be the first to get food. The adults tend to make the puppies follow them a bit to let the little pups catch up so they all have a chance at food. All the 18 pups born this spring by three mothers survived this summer. Many times wolf pups will starve to death because the summer can be the toughest time of the year for wolves. The prey are strongest in the summer and wolves generally only succeed in a kill one in five tries.

September 4, 2020 Bison herd on the move

zxcvbnm1WP — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 03:45:55 +0000

A large herd of bison heads down the road in early September during a snow storm, traveling from Round Prairie toward Soda Butte in Yellowstone National Park.

September 4, 2020 Bull bison fight for dominance

zxcvbnm1WP — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 03:40:59 +0000

The rut for bison in Yellowstone begins in late July and goes through August and even into September. Bulls display their dominance by bellowing, wallowing, and fighting other bulls. Bulls sometimes fight to the death, but not often. These two bulls seem to come to a standoff.

August 21-22, 2020 Junction Butte wolves and coyotes feeding on bison carcass

zxcvbnm1WP — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 23:18:37 +0000

The Junction Butte Pack of wolves has 18 puppies born of three different mothers. That’s a lot of mouths to feed so it’s fortunate that, about a week ago, there were three separate bison carcasses relatively near to where the puppies are being kept, making it easier for the adult wolves to bring food to the pups. The first video shows four wolves, three black and one gray, feeding on the carcass. Two of the wolves are collared; 1229F is the black and 1228F is believed to be the gray, although she may be 907F. The black wolf with a white spot on the back of its neck is a male.

In the second video, there are also four wolves, all black, one of them a female un-collared black, different from the three blacks in the prior video. They had a brief rally after chasing coyotes off the carcass.

The third video shows three coyotes that were feeding on the bison carcass before abruptly leaving once they became aware that the wolves were nearby.

August 18, 2020 – Seven gray puppies

zxcvbnm1WP — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 22:57:43 +0000

There were 18 puppies born to three different females of the Junction Butte Pack of wolves in Yellowstone this spring, 11 black and seven gray. (It’s a myth that only the alpha male and female mate.) Typically, a female has four to five pups. The mortality rate for wolf pups can often be high, so the pups are always being counted. Until recently, only 16 and then 17 puppies had been counted, first 10 black and six gray, then 11 black pups were counted. In the past week, seven gray pups have been counted, as verified in the following video, accounting for all 18 pups. It is easiest to count the pups when an adult wolf comes in with food as most, if not all, of the pups will run to the adult.

August 5, 2020

zxcvbnm1WP — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:43:46 +0000

One good thing to remember when watching wildlife is to make sure something is not watching you…from behind. Bison roam all around and no matter how exciting the wolf watching is I try to break and look around for other visitors.

Today a pair of Badgers came out below our vantage point and it was really fun to watch them.

Badgers are the big brothers of the Mustelidae family which include weasels, ferrets and wolverine. They dig for squirrels, mice and groundhogs in the soft sandy soil of the grasslands. They have low-slung bodies and short legs. With their characteristic black and white stripped faces they are easy to identify.

August 3, 2020

zxcvbnm1WP — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 18:16:34 +0000

The coytoe and the wolf share the smae spaces. Not that they are happy about it though. Wolves will kill coyotes found in their territory. In this video the wolf is wanting some breakfast at a new carcass in the Lamar River. He wants to get their before the bears arrive and take it for themselves. THe coyote is unhappy that the wolf is taking a shortcut through his territory but all he can really do about it is make a lot of noise. The video does clearly show the differences in size, color and the height of the legs and the tails.

August 1, 2020

zxcvbnm1WP — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 19:50:50 +0000

The Junction Butte Pack puppies are getting bigger but they are still not ready to head out with the pack. This morning we find them out early in Slough Creek and a couple of adults bring the pups breakfast.

July 21, 2020

zxcvbnm1WP — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 18:25:03 +0000

We had a quiet morning in Slough creek watching and listening for wildlife. But the only thing we heard was the sound of an airplane engine. But this is not a bad thing because it was the lead scientist of the Yellowstone Wolf restoration project Doug Smith.

We can often see him flying in a small plane combing the valleys at low altitude looking for wolves. Checking on the packs.

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July 19, 2020

zxcvbnm1WP — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 22:45:09 +0000

Arising early and persistence are two things that usually pay off when trying to view wildlife in Yellowstone. From one day to the next you can never know what you might see. One day, you might see nothing of note and the next may be a banner day for viewing. Yesterday, we saw very little at our favorite viewing spot. We saw one black wolf for about five seconds in the far distance. This morning, upon entering the Park just before daybreak, we saw a black wolf about 100 feet off the road near Barronette. It was too dark to make a photograph. We wondered if it was a wolf from the Lamar Pack, whose territory has been the eastern part of the Park until recently when, apparently, the pack left the Park. A bit later, we watched a group of about eight wolf pups sunning themselves on a ridge top while being supervised by a black adult. After the pups went on the other side of the ridge and were no longer visible, we watched as the adult came down slope to the valley floor, crossed Slough Creek, and then slowly approached the hill we were standing on, disappearing from time to time in the folds of the sage-covered hills. At one point, we could no longer tell which direction it was headed and thought it was gone from sight for good. But then, suddenly, it appeared below us, close enough that we could see its piercing yellow eyes. As it passed before us, I was able to make this photograph.

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