Yellowstone 2021, part 1 of 3

Jill and I went to Yellowstone National Park at the end of May and beginning of June. We left home on May 22 and returned on June 6. This will be a long post, so I've broken it up into 3 parts. This part covers the week from May 22 to May 28. The second part covers the remainder of the trip, from May 23 to June 6. The third part is an overall summary.

We took our traditional route, which is to leave Fort Collins on a Saturday and make it as far as Rawlins (about three hours). The next day, we headed toward Grand Teton National Park, where we would camp at the Headwaters campground for the next two nights. On the way, we saw a few birds. First, this flock of White-faced Ibis:

We also saw this Osprey who had built a nest inside a Bull Lake billboard near the intersection of US 287 and US 26:

We camped at Headwaters Campground as planned. The next day, May 24, we drove around Grand Teton National Park. It was very cold and rainy all day, so the wildlife tended to keep its head down. We did see this Coyote hunting, though:

We saw a variety of birds that day as well, but with the overcast sky, none of the photos were very remarkable. We just missed the famous Grizzly 399 and her four cubs. Although disappointed, we returned to the spot a couple of times to see what else would show up, and we were rewarded with this young Grizzly. This is the sequence of him approaching our van:

None of these photos are cropped, although they *were* taken with a long 700mm f/5.6 telephoto lens. When we first saw him, he was far enough away that I got out and told Jill that I was thinking of walking up the road a bit to be closer. She told me that it looked like it was coming toward us. Looking again, I saw she was correct, so I just stood by the van. Around the fourth picture in this sequence, I got nervous and got in the van. Around the sixth picture, the park rangers told everybody to close their doors. The bear got *very* close, with this the best image:

He is eating those little yellow flowers. After all that excitement, we wandered around for a bit. We drove as far north as the Snake  River Overlook, just outside Yellowstone National Park, where we saw this Osprey in flight:

We then returned to our campground. The next day, May 25, we headed up toward Yellowstone for real. At Lewis Falls, we spotted this American Dipper, or Water Ouzel:

There were a couple of them bobbing around in the fast-running water. They were collecting nesting material, which is why this one is holding pine needles in its beak. This was to be Water Ouzel Day. Later in the afternoon, on a hike to Lone Star Geyser, we saw this Water Ouzel:

Its nest was already built, inside a water gate structure, and it was feeding something to its chicks. After our hike, we continued to our camp at Madison Campground and retired for the evening.

The next day, May 26, we spent some time in the meadow at Madison Junction. This is one of our favorite spots in Yellowstone. There, we saw this mama Bison nursing her calf:

After some good relaxing meadow time, we headed east out of Madison Junction. At the Terrace Spring boardwalk, we saw this fine Chipping Sparrow:

We drove up to Canyon, where we spent a little time on the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. There we saw an Osprey nest far down inside the canyon, on top of a rock spire:

Finding a more auspicious spot, I broke out the big lens, and saw this sequence of activity on the nest:

Thankfully, there will be more Osprey in the future!

On the way back to camp, we took a short hike to Ice Lake, where we saw this Barrow's Goldeneye pair:

We also saw this Common Loon:

The next morning, May 27, we had more Madison Junction meadow time. Here is a panorama of the meadow. The Madison and Firehole rivers join at the left side of the river, and flow out to the right. In the middle is National Park Mountain, so named because it was in this meadow that the idea of the first National Park was born:

We saw a variety of smaller wildlife in the meadow, including a Lazuli Bunting who was hunting dandelion seeds:

Several Mergansers, including this fine flying fellow:

This pretty little Leopard Frog:

And this Turkey Vulture:

We then drove down to Old Faithful. We got a nice view of it erupting with some Bison in the foreground:

We also, of course, saw a few birds, including this Yellow-rumped Warbler (there were thousands of these in the park):

We also saw these Ravens arguing over this apple. The one on the left is hopping up and down aggressively, while the one on the right defends its turf. In the end, though, they both abandoned the apple:

We returned to camp for our last night (so we thought) at Madison Campground. The next morning was Meadow Time again. We wandered down a trail by the river, then up and over a small plateau. We walked around the plateau rather than returning by our original route. We were very lucky we did; as we approached the trail we had started on a few minutes earlier, a herd of Bison came thundering down the trail:

We are glad we were not just a minute earlier, or we could have been run over! We took a brief trip down the Fountain Flat Drive, where we saw this beautiful Trumpeter Swan on the Firehole River:

Heading back north, we stopped at Sheepeater Cliffs, where we saw this nice Marmot:

Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels were also abundant:

We made it as far as Swan Lake, where, true to its name, there were a pair of Tundra Swans nesting:

We then drove back west toward West Yellowstone. Before exiting the park, we went to the end of Barns Hole Road, where I managed to chase down one of the Mountain Chickadees who had been taunting us:

We then left the park for the night, and stopped at the KOA in West Yellowstone where we could get some Internet and shower time!

Part 2 continues in the next post.