Animals in the parks

I mentioned in the blog some of the places where we had seen animals, but I decided to put pictures of them together in one post. Most of these shots were taken by Gail, who had great success using her new digital camera with the great optical zoom lens!

Bear

This is the infamous bear that we encountered walking down the trail at Jenny Lake. He was closer than the 100 yards that the National Park service recommends! Donna was the only person who had the thought (or perhaps the stupidity!) to try to take a picture. I don't think she paused long enough to zoom in or focus her camera!



Moose

We found this moose munching some lunch on a little side road that we took.



Bison

We ran into a bison traffic jam around the Mud Volcano Trail. There were a few buffalo along the side of the road. As we crept ahead through traffic, we discovered there was an entire herd stretched in the open meadow to our right.





We also ran into lots of bison the evening we went animal watching in the Lamar Valley. They were all around, and when we were leaving at dusk, we had to wait as they all decided to cross the road.


Elk

There were some mama and baby elk that liked to hang out in a little grassy area between the roads at Mammoth.


We also came across three or four elk with huge racks of antlers at night as we headed back to Mammoth from the Lamar Valley. They were still there in the morning when we retraced the road, so we could get good pictures of them. We also saw another group of elk hanging out in the trees near the Firehole River. I think the first one was sticking out his tongue at us!




Coyote

We were looking for wolves in the Lamar Valley, but saw this coyote instead. He had pounced on something, which you can see in his mouth.


Pronghorn Deer

Several of these deer were hanging out near the coyote, and we wondered if he was checking them out for his next meal.


Osprey

We were able to watch this osprey at our first stop at the Yellowstone River Canyon. With our binoculars, we found the nest and the babies.


Butterfly

Ok, not so wild, but such a pretty picture!