Readers’ wildlife photos

Today we have photos from Montana taken by Gregory Zolnerowich (there are two exceptions; see below). Gregory’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I recently spent 10 days in Livingston, Montana, visiting a friend and meeting some fellow Kansans for a bit of rafting and camping on the Yellowstone River south of Livingston. Attached are some wildlife photos that might be suitable for WEIT. Another person in our group took the photos of the bald eagle and sandhill cranes but I have permission to share them.

The marvelous scenery of the Paradise Valleyl; the Yellowstone River flows north through it. We camped one night alongside this small side branch of the river. There were small American black bear (Ursus americanus) tracks in the mud so we had to store our food away from the tents:

Hello, do you have a minute to hear about the good news from our lord and savior, Bambi?:

This is the same mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) as in the previous photo. I stepped out on the deck and it was quite unafraid of me. The friend I was visiting has a number of raised garden beds and grows a variety of vegetables. Her active gardens have deer fencing around them to protect the plants. Possibly the same deer would come around in the early evening and eat apples that had fallen from her apple tree:

This is probably a mountain cottontail (Sylvilagus nuttallii): there were many of these around our cabin. They are the real marauders of the garden and will chew through the plastic deer fencing to graze and raze the garden veggies:

Montana has at least four species of chipmunks. I think this is the least chipmunk (Neotamias minimus). It would skitter and scurry about and was entertaining to watch:

We watched this bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) glide in and land on the shore acrossfrom our campsite. It then waded into the water, caught a fish, and flew away. I’ve never seen a bald eagle do that:

Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) are large and majestic. We could hear them calling during the early evening. Their call is quite unique:

Along with bald eagles, ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) also were abundant. We floated right under this one, I was surprised it did not fly off. Look at that hooked beak!:

There are a number of ready-made nesting platforms along the river to keep the ospreys and eagles from nesting on the power poles. This one has ospreys but sometimes we would see an eagle using the platforms:

I was suprised to see this caterpillar out and about on a chilly morning. It appears to be Glover’s silkmoth, Hyalophora gloveri (Saturniidae):

The closest ID I’ll give for this caterpillar is perhaps Arctiinae: