As we started our rounds yesterday, we had cloudy weather with occasional snow and sleet. The gray sky made landscape photos difficult, leaving me uninspired. So far the bears we'd seen had been either disappearing artists or in dark lighting. I was also fighting the issue of a photographic axiom, "Don't put your tripod in the prints of someone elses." Yellowstone is so photographed, how am I going to make unique magic photos here.
While I did not take photos of every highlight yesterday, the highlights were:
Bald eagle nest with eaglets and one of the eagles hunting and hovering over the river
Finding the larger buffalo herds with calves
Coyote den in the rocks
Grizzly bear near the campsite
The coyote den was already packed with photographers with their huge lenses. Talk about a wildlife jam when we first arrived. There was one lady in a car trying to get through who got so upset . . . she starting beeping her horn and yelling. For crying out loud, this was not a moose, elk, or bear jam . . . didn't she know how rare it is to see baby coyotes? After the first toot, I told her tersely, "Don't honk your horn." And it really did not take her that long to wait through the slow line of cars.
I had grabbled my 100-400 because it was easier to get to in a hurry, but I quickly went over to the jeep and got the big Sigma out. Unfortunately, i had forgotten to change my setting from manual back to autofocus. Plus I had to wait patiently as the non photographers moved to get a good spot. But the jackpot for me was when the mother coyote came back. While she did not go to the den with all the photographers there, she did show herself several times as she kept trying to get back to the den. I haven't decided whether to post these or not as they ARE competition quality.
We're going to get out early, and that den is high on my list for the day.
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