Tiger Road

One of my favorite areas around Breckenridge is Tiger Road. In the summer it is one of the routes to get high in the backcountry as it goes from pavement to graded dirt to jeep trail.

One winter, I spent a lot of time photographing the creek and a dipper (a small mountain bird that literally walks the bottom of creeks looking for its food) that frequented the area. My photo, Winter Stream, came from the Swan River as it gurgles its way beside the road.

This summer I've been up it a couple of times. I've been rewarded by the evening peaceful time of watching the trout surface, creating small ripples on the beaver ponds. When my kids were growing up, we spent time on our vacations fishing beaver ponds near Silverton. Part of the allure of fishing is getting to be out in a beautiful place, enjoying your surroundings while you are waiting for the fish to bite. While the fish you catch at beaver ponds are small brook trout - they sure taste good at the end of the day.

On our first drive up Tiger Road this year, I just enjoyed being on a jeep trail. I eyed the back country campsites, remembering how much fun it was to camp in a tent, right next to the babbling, gurgling creek. We were also rewarded with two beaver sightings, but they were far enough away that I did not try to bring out the big lens, instead I just watched the first beaver chew off branches of the willow lining his pond and finally take a bunch across the pond. He took that bunch and dove down under water presumably to his home-it was not as obvious as other beaver homes I've seen.

The second night I headed up to the beaver ponds. I pulled out the big lens, hoping a beaver would show. While I was waiting, I was enjoying the fish coming to the surface.



I decided to see if I could actually capture a fish surfacing with the big lens. Amazingly, I did - actually in one of the earlier frames.



Now this is cropped way down, ISO was something like 1600 to get a fast shutterspeed - so image quality is poor. But this is the kind of shot that luck really plays a role. You never know where they're going to surface, so you are never really set up for the shot. And for a memory picture, this is worth a lot to me. But it will never be submitted for publication, contest or stock photography.

I was finally rewarded when the beaver came out.



The original shot had a lot of digital "noise" from the high ISO needed for the lighting conditions. I used the noise reducing filter in photoshop and then went back using the art history brush and brought back out detail in the beaver. It came out better than I expected.

The beaver realized I was there and went under the water. I was at an angle and the water was so clear I could see him swimming below the surface.

He decided to move to some of the other ponds and headed off down one of his trails. I was getting eaten by those wonderful mosquitoes the fish were feeding on. The light was also fading, so we headed back down to civilization.

Yellowstone's Small Mammals

When visiting Yellowstone, it is easy to get caught up in all the large animals - the bison, the elk, the deer, the bears, etc. Those are pretty easy to spot and they are fun to watch. But Yellowstone is filled with small mammals. Some of these small mammals require "luck" to get to see them.



We saw Mr. Beaver one afternoon when we were driving through Lamar Valley. I called out "Beaver." Henry turned around and parked at a nearby pullout. I was sure the beaver would immediately dive under the water and that would be that.





But to my surprise he swam through his channel, cut down a branch and came back to eat.





It was amazing how fast he devoured every leaf on that branch. Only then did he swim back to his house. Although we looked for him every time we drove by his home, I never saw him again. Henry did see him one day when he was doing a bicycle ride.



Throughout the park Uinta ground squirrels chatter behind the sage from their burrows. While they sound like high pitched birds, they are actually calling out warnings to the rest of their family. They were on my list of animals I was hoping to photograph. One day when we had driven up the road to the Slough Creek Campground, I spotted one on a large boulder. It left, but I went ahead and got out my big lens and tripod hoping that this rock was a place where it spent a lot of time. My patience was soon rewarded. From the photos, I can tell this one was female. She stood on her rock and sang with all her heart and body.






But in reality she was warning the rest of the ground squirrels that there was a predator nearby - me. Bravely she held her post. Occasionally she would stop her call and glare at me.

By the way, Uinta ground squirrels estivate. When the weather gets hot, they go back underground and sleep until the weather cools off in the fall. They are only active a few months a year.


We had been seeing marmots on occasion. Marmots love the big rock piles left by the glaciers. We had seen one near Floating Island Lake and we had seen another on the road between Tower and Roosevelt. The one at Floating Island Lake was too far away to get a good photograph. And the other disappeared immediately as we drove by. My opportunity came when we were stopped and set up by the red tail hawk nest. There was a marmot that came out to check on us.





At first he would check us out and then scamper to the safety of his home. We were chatting with another photographer - and the marmot began to feel more comfortable. He kept coming closer and closer in his search for food. Since I wanted marmot photos, I began to move around with the camera and big lens hoping to get some good shots. Fortunately for me, the marmot just went about doing his marmot thing - and I got some good shots. He finally retreated back to his home, but he came back on the rock occasionally to keep checking on us.



Years ago when my children were little and we were visiting Yellowstone, I saw my first muskrat on the Yellowstone River in Hayden Valley. While I've seen a few muskrats elsewhere, I'm still thrilled when I get to see another one.


On this trip on one of our almost daily runs through Hayden valley, I saw a water mammal and, of course, hollered, "Stop!" Henry made a quick U-turn. I guessed pretty fast that this was a muskrat instead of a beaver. We quickly dug out the big lens and tripod. Fortunately, this little fellow swam around long enough for me to get off a few shots.


Of course, the animals are more interested in doing their thing than in me getting a good shot. One of the shots gave me a clear view of his body, but not a good view of his face and eye. Naturally, the one that gave me good eye contact had blurry foreground grass. While I've seen wolf photos that have the same issues - blurred foreground, sharp wolf- competitions frown on that blurry foreground.


I played around a little tonight to see if I could salvage that shot. First, I cropped so that I could get just the muskrat and a few of the ripples around him. Then I carefully starting cloning out the remaining blurred green grass. At one point, I tried one more crop . . . I'm not sure this will be a saleable shot . . . but it is MY best muskrat shot!


I had planned to make the hike up to Trout Lake to see the river otters there. I was disappointed when I learned that the fishing coyote had killed them. I've heard since that there is one otter left up there, but I gave up on the long uphill hike when I realized I had missed the otters. But one evening when we were going through Hayden Valley I did get a chance to see a river otter at Yellowstone. For the first time in a long time there is a river otter at Otter Creek in Hayden Valley. We saw a bunch of people looking at the water. Naturally I got out and hustled over. Not knowing what it was, I only took the 100-400 lens. I had a pretty steep trail to get to the water level, so it's probably just as well. But I was thrilled to get my first look at a river otter in the wild. He stayed under the bridge. Occasionally he would swim over . . . get a good look at us and immediately dive. There were too many people in his space so eventually he moved on over to the river.



While I did not get great shots . . . I at least got something. River otters are part of the marten family - not rodents like beavers and muskrats. Instead of grass, twigs, and trees, river otters mostly eat fish. But they also eat crustaceans, some amphibians, reptiles, and occasional bird or insects.

To see larger versions of these photos, check out my Yellowstone's Small Mammals webpage.