Yellowstone: Ravens

Ravens are not raptors, but are just as intimidating:



Just when you think it's flirting with you...



... it would give you a hard cold stare...


... and then fly away in disgust...


... to play (or fight?) with more interesting partners:

Yellowstone: Bison-lings

What do you call baby bison? Bison calves? Since it was August, there was a lot of them playing around with each other near the road:







The mom (or pop?) was just grazing nearby:

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone is not as grand as "the" Grand Canyon, but still pretty grand!





You can get close enough to the falls to taste the water:

Raising a family in Yellowstone

It being August, most of the chicks, cubs, calves, etc. were already pretty big, but since the breeding season starts so late there (it still snows in Yellowstone in May), none were ready to leave the nest yet. Here are some family portraits.

For some reason, the only ducks I saw in Yellowstone were females. There were no drakes on display anywhere! This is a family of (I think) Lesser Scaup ducks:



Two families for the price of one: Blue-Winged Teals (background) and Buffleheads (foreground)


An island-load of White Pelicans:


Cliff Swallow colony:




Upping the stakes: Three families for the price of one. All three are Redhead ducks:


Juvenile bald eagles, just left the nest:


These juvenile Ospreys are still in their nest:


A pica family (rabbit relative, but without the ears):


Mallards:

Yellowstone raptors

The hawks and eagles in Yellowstone are all over the place (technical term). We saw more ospreys than chipmunks, to the point where they just stopped being an attraction. We saw bald eagles almost every day, too. The area where we saw the most variety of raptors was actually just outside of the park, around Hebgen lake, where we had rented a cabin. Kestrels there were as numerous as pigeons, most of the other pictures in this post are from that area too:

Bald Eagle (no introduction needed!)


Swainson's Hawk:


Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk:


Peregrine Falcon:


Immature Bald Eagle:


Osprey (before fishing):


Osprey (after fishing):

Adult western Red-Tailed Hawk:



Red-Tailed Hawk vs American Kestrel:


Sharp-Shinned Hawk:


American Kestrel:


Juvenile Bald Eagles:


I am going to call this one a Golden Eagle. It was large, and its tail is longer than a bald eagle's. But it's hard to tell since it was flying against the sun.

Yellowstone: Milky Way

This is another awesome set of photos from Yellowstone, but in a completely different (and more truly awe-some) way than the fishing bald eagle:





Photo credit goes to Luke Cabading.

Yellowstone: Big Game

In Yellowstone, big game usually means bison. There are thousands of them in the park, but this we didn't see almost any until one day we got to Lamar Valley. And then we saw them all (seemingly) in one place!



A set of them was walking across the road and trying to cross:





In another place of the valley, the bison were mixing with the pronghorn antelopes. (This kind of picture is something you usually see coming from Africa, not the US!)


More pronghorns were also close by in the Lamar Valley:




You can feel how massive the bison are - aren't you just a little afraid for the car in this picture?


In a close-up, they seem placid, but apparently once in a while they do gore some visitors.


Once in a while, you come across some disembodied horns in the grass. How big do you think the elk bull has to be to support them?


The elk is the second-most numerous big game animal at Yellowstone, and unlike the bison, we saw them all over the place:




And then there was this panda browsing on the riverbank. Oh, wait...