Ross Cunniff

In my previous post , I mentioned that I would be updating it to point people at options for helping those impacted by the recent flooding in the Greater Yellowstone area. I will put a link to this post in that one, and update this one as I find information. The first information I have seen comes from a Facebook post from Jackson Hole Ecotour Adventures : Relief Fund for Yellowstone Employees who lost their house in Gardiner. (Contribute here- https://bit.ly/3HoSKbn )  There are many videos circulating of a house that was washed away by the Yellowstone River. This house belonged to park employees, and it housed five local families and their pets. These families dedicated their careers to the preservation, research, and protection of Yellowstone National Park, and they have lost everything.  EcoTour Adventures has donated to this cause.  Southwest Montana Flood Relief Fund: (contribute here: https://bit.ly/3Qsob8D )  Communities in Madison County and Park County, whe...

My wife, Jill, and I went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks from May 29 to June 11, 2022. It was an epic trip, but before I get to document it, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the currently ongoing flooding emergency in Yellowstone. This video from the National Park Service highlights the damage to one of the roads: Our thoughts and prayers are with the residents of Gardiner, who are currently isolated from the outside world, and with the park workers and visitors impacted and evacuated during the emergency. I will update this post if I find a good charitable organization to help those impacted by the flooding. EDIT 06/15/2022 - I have made a separate post for Yellowstone relief information . So, on with the blogging. First, here is a collage of the very, very, very best images from the entire trip: These images individually can be found in this Google Photos album . Each picture has a brief description of what animal or scenery is shown. For some context of where w...

This afternoon, May 25, 2022, the Boeing Starliner capsule re-entered the atmosphere after its successful mission docking with the International Space Station for the first time. It landed at White Sands, New Mexico. On its way down, it passed directly over Las Cruces, NM: A security camera at my parents' house in Las Cruces, NM captured the double sonic boom. It is about 11 seconds in to this video: Thanks to my brother for thinking of this!

Last night was a total lunar eclipse. Notably, the partial phase started shortly after moonrise here in Fort Collins, so the moon was fairly low in the sky for most of the eclipse. This means it was a good opportunity to get a composite photo of the lunar eclipse with the city lights of Fort Collins in the foreground. Some messing about with Google Maps yielded the top of the trail at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area as the best spot. I drew a map showing the field-of-view of my chosen equipment: The red lines show the azimuth of the moon at the beginning and ending of the eclipse, and the green triangle shows the field-of-view of the camera when placed in portrait orientation. I submitted a request for permission to stay on the natural area property after hours. With permission in hand, I packed up my bag. 2 cameras and lenses, a computer, spare batteries, and two tripods. 27 pounds worth: I also schlepped up to the top of the trail with a folding chair and small folding table. Other equi...

I wrote this letter to the Fort Collins Coloradoan on September 11, 2001 (it was published a few days later). With the 20th anniversary of the date coming up, and with our recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, I thought it would be interesting to repost it. I chose to post it today rather than on September 11 because there is a political nature to it, and I wanted to avoid the actual date out of respect for the families and friends of the victims. I feel the same today about this as I did 20 years ago. Blood Begets Blood Ross Cunniff, September 11, 2001 My heart cried out for blood when I heard the news this morning.  Bloody vengeance against those who had committed this unspeakable crime against thousands of innocent people.  And my heart was not discriminating: it wanted vengeance against all, past, present, or future, who had terrorized the world through their words and deeds.  It echoed the sentiments of persecutors past who said, "Kill them all; God will know His own!"...

This post summarizes our whole two-week trip to Yellowstone / Grand Teton. The first post covers the week from May 23 to May 28 . The second post covers the second week from May 29 to June 5 . All of the photos in these three posts can be found in this shared Google Photos album . More photos may be found in these shared Google Photos albums: Birds Mammals Landscapes Here is a collage of all the bears I photographed - 14 in all (we saw 16 total, but I did not get pictures of two of them): From upper left, the bears were found at: Grand Teton National Park "likely bear spot" South of Canyon Junction Between Mammoth and Tower Between Mammoth and Tower (through the windshield, sorry) Between Mammoth and Tower (a couple of miles from the previous group) South of Mammoth Near the Yellowstone / Grand Teton border Grand Teton National Park "likely bear spot" Grand Teton National Park "likely bear spot" This is a collage of all 8 Moose that we saw on our trip: Fro...

This is part 2 of 3 of our 2021 Yellowstone adventure, covering May 29-June 5. Part 1 is here, covering May 23-May 28 . You can also read a shorter summary of our visit . May 29 we got a slow start in West Yellowstone, so we decided to take it a little easier and visit the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center , which we had never visited before. It is a nice little preserve. The animals there cannot be released into the wild for a variety of reasons (largely, habituation to human presence and human garbage). You can see bears and wolves much closer than you typically can in the wild. including this fine wolf: They also have River Otters. Sadly, these are the only River Otters we saw on this trip: We did see this nice Violet-green Swallow perched on a roof peak: We drove on to Madison Junction for some other meadow time. Among other small animals, we saw some Sandhill Cranes: Our big hike for the day was up to Grebe Lake. We did see Grebes. We also saw Barrow's Goldeneye, including t...