Today’s photos come from Ephraim Heller, who took photos at Yellowstone. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
I spent the last week of January in Yellowstone National Park hoping to photograph a wide variety of wildlife. It was a surprisingly unsuccessful trip. While the bison and coyotes cooperated, I never spotted any other mammals. Absent were foxes, wolves, otters, martens, ermine, bobcats, mountain lions, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. I suspect that it was due to a combination of bad luck and the least snow in everyone’s memory, so (a) it was harder to spot wildlife in the sagebrush, and (b) animals were up in the hills rather than in the valleys and on the roads. Too bad!
American Bison (Bison bison):
Coyotes (Canis latrans):
Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) during blue hour, after sunset:
Common ravens (Corvus corax) discussing politics:
Elon Musk’s new Robo-Raven? Raven Model X? Or just another banded raven wearing a transmitter to stay connected to social media?:
A bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus):
American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus):
The folks with whom I was traveling wanted to visit the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center, a nonprofit wildlife park located in the town of West Yellowstone. I normally don’t photograph animals in zoos. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, which is a poor metaphor because shooting fish in a barrel with a camera would be quite challenging. So the wolves (Canis lupus) and grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) in the following photos are not wild.
I also normally don’t shoot landscapes, but I liked the mood of the morning steam rising from this pool at the Mammoth Hot Springs:
Those are all excellent pictures! Very impressive and expressive.
Wow these are beautiful! A week – excellent choice for a getaway – hmmm…