ANIMALS OF YELLOWSTONE PARK AND SOUTHERN MONTANA....PART III

Mountain Blue Bird

Elk on the lawns of Yellowstone Headquarters in Mammoth

Canadian Geese diving for Food

Yellowstone River

Yellowstone Post Office in Mammoth

Young Bison so close to the car that I could have opened my door and touched Him

Park rules.....keep 25 feet Away

More people injured by bison in the park than Bears

Red Rock Lake...Montana

Bull Bison

Herd of Bison on shoreline of Yellowstone Lake

More Elk at Mammoth

Pronghorn

Idaho-Montana Border

North Americans often refer to this animal as an Antelope

Western antelope are much smaller Animals

Merganser??????

A fellow photographer told me that these birds were Mergansers, but pictures of the Merganser look nothing like these birds. This bird has a red tuff on its head, a thick neck, feathers are shades of brown and cream, has a pointed beak like a loon, and a pointed tail. I need an Audubon Field Guide

Yellowstone River

Red Rock Lake

Montana

When traveling anywhere in the west, sighting one or more cars pulled to the side of the road usually signals an animal sighting. While driving Hwy 16 to Mammoth, we came upon cars parked on both sides of the road and everywhere else that was parkable. 50+ people, many with binoculars, tripods with cameras and tripods with gigantic scopes were lined up along a ridge over looking a river basin vista. They informed us that back wolves were walking around 2 1/2-3 miles in the distance. Everyone appeared to have them in their scope. People were very generous with their spotting scopes and Chuck saw one through a Swarovski scope. I looked diligently, but was never able to see anything but sagebrush that looked like a wolf. There were two park rangers there to maintain order.

Much to our chagrin, we saw no bears. There have been numerous stories of bear killings this summer, so perhaps they have had their fill of human flesh. So much for pictures of the Yellowstone of old with bears crawling all over the cars of tourists and people taking pictures of them up close.