Wonderful Wildlife in Yellowstone

There is just something so exciting about seeing animals in their natural habitat, especially when we're talking about ones that you've never seen except in a zoo.

On Friday, we saw a gray wolf (it was black in color) across the way. I watched it with my binoculars. Ed took pictures but even with his zoom lens, it wasn't easy to see. That was a very lucky siting, not seen by many.

A guy in our group spotted the wolf. When we stopped so did others, not even knowing what we were watching.

Here was Ed's photo with his telephoto lens.

At least with cropping, we could see the wolf, who was carrying something that appeared to be a small animal in his mouth.

This is another example of a shot from far away. I thought Ed captured this crane and its reflection beautifully, in spite of the distance.

We saw lots of buffalo -- you don't have to worry about missing animals because there is usually a traffic jam of people stopping to take pictures.

Hey, buddy, how's it going?

Sunday morning as we were leaving, there were lots of cars in the Hayden Valley and traffic was barely creeping. There were large herds on both sides of the road and we could see one lying down on the pull-out area. As we approached, we saw that a calf must have been hit and it was lying on its side dead. That was so sad.

We had visited Mammoth Hot Springs on Friday and our guide was disappointed that the elk weren't there. As we were leaving the park on Sunday, we passed through there and the elk all over the place! There were several rangers directing traffic because the elk just walked across the road whenever they pleased.

If it itches, scratch it!

Whew! Think I'll take a break.

Lunchtime!

We also saw a mountain goat and an osprey nest but we didn't get pictures. We saw a mama moose and her calf on our way to Cody last week - too bad I couldn't get my camera out fast enough for that.