Sorry about the interruptions, hopefully I can bash on a bit today.
I failed to say this is Day 6, Friday, BTW.
We moved on from Tower up to the high meadow where we had seen the Grizzly female and cub the previous afternoon. We had heard they had showed in the same place for several days, so we thought a stakeout was a good idea. A stop of a couple of hours didn't produce a result and with hindsight, a better approach to finding bears in Yellowstone would be to do what the grockles do: simply drive round the park and stop where you find a bear jam. Seriously, that approach works.
What it doesn't do is get you views of small birds. For that you do need to keep stopping and looking at the landscape in detail. There doesn't seem to be a really satisfactory approach to selecting a bit of landscape to check out: we had thought checking picnic areas would work but everyone is so keen to avoid being eaten by bears that actually they are very good at clearing away crumbs etc, so you don't often find flocks of birds waiting to mug people for their food - or bears on the same mission for that matter!
Anyway, hanging around for the Grizzlies we did get slightly better views of Clark's Nutcrackers, a cracking male Lazuli Bunting that was a tick, and a very plain immature Cassin's Finch that sat for pix, which was more than the very brief adult male did before flying miles off and disappearing into the woods. A couple of Red-tailed Hawks circling above and hunting the upper slope gave us something else to watch, and the area was also populated with some really funky grasshoppers that kept flying around showing as big yellow spots while making a loud sound like a very fast crackling fire. Unfortunately on the ground they revert to being dull brown camouflaged things and in-flight photos proved to be beyond me. They were really excellent though, dude.
Later it began to cloud up and we moved first into the Lamar Valley and then onwards to a layby below Mount Barronette where we found a total of 17 Mountain Goats feeding near the lower edge of the cliffs and screes. They were not quite as distant as the Slough Creek Wolves and scope views were actually quite good. I was absolutely delighted with these as my Mum used to subscribe to those Time-Life books that fill a bookcase faster than you can blink: the "Mountains" volume had a Mountain Goat perched precariously on a crag on the cover which determined me to see the species one day. A childhood ambition fulfilled!
The team took turns to hook their respective Canon cameras onto my 500 + 1.4 combo, and then I invited an Asian (Indian) American who was popping off with his little 200mm to do the same. Having done so he walked off telling his partner: "I have got to get one of those!" We saw him again a couple of days later and he asked me what model my lens is, so the idea was obviously gnawing at him.... I hope he has either plenty of cash or an understanding partner!
We popped into our accommodation during the afternoon, I think to give us time to pick up supplies: while waiting to move on again I had a Hairy Woodpecker (camera not to hand: some people never learn) and a couple of Pine Siskins. Off on our travels again, we paused at the canyon turnout where the number of cars suggested bear action, but we had missed it. We walked out to the canyon where Jeff and Steve found a Peregrine Falcon perched. The bad news was it was vertically down the cliff on our side, and the only way to see let alone photograph it, was to look directly downwards hanging over the railing, with the boiling rapids of the river several hundred feet below the bird. I managed to inch up to the railings and by staying firmly behind my camera (I have found over the years that looking through the viewfinder and taking pictures detaches me to an extent from the situation) I managed to snatch a couple of snaps before trotting quickly backwards away from the drop.
Then we returned to the high meadow - still no Grizzlies - and back down to the canyon turnout where the lynx-eyed Jeff spotted a bear up on the ridge 80 yards above the road, through trees, while driving. It had to be the regular Black Bear female with, presumably, her three cubs and very quickly we were parked, out of the car and trying to spot what was going on. The adult must have disappeared over the ridge again - curses - but at least two cubs, a black one and a cinnamon one, were still intermittently visible a bit at a time as they foraged and played among the dead branches and tall herbaceous plants.
Then the family set off along the top of the ridge and sprinting left along the road towards another small turnout we finally got a fairly clear view of the adult female striding along the ridgeline - backlit of course, but you can't have everything.....
Especially if you are short. I couldn't see very well but several other people had climbed up on the stone wall that divided the road from the cliffs and in an instant I was up there with them, hand-holding the 500mm and shooting uphill across the road with a several hundred foot drop immediately at my back waiting for an incautious step backwards. I kept my attention firmly to my front.....
When the bears disappeared into the next block of timber I jumped down off the wall, ran along to my left and climbed up on it again at the next turnout, where more onlookers had re-established contact with the bears a bit closer. Unfortunately they were now very much on the move and all I got was a back end and an ear of cub before they once again, and more permanently, disappeared among the tumbled rocks, deadfalls, dead ground and herbage of the slope.
Our intention for the evening session was to try the Soda Butte Creek again, as we had gen that views were regular and at the very least, closer than at Slough Creek. The drizzly weather cleared up a bit as we returned towards the Lamar Valley, then we got caught in what we thought must be a Buffalo jam (it was exactly where we'd been in one earlier). It wasn't, as the general air of urgency and mayhem quickly indicated: it was another female Black Bear with three black cubs.
Again the behaviour of the onlookers was nothing short of lunacy (and on this occasion there were no rangers to try to keep order): individuals were scuttling to within 10 or 20 yards of the bears to take pictures with their phones: parents were allowing their kids to do the same without even attempting to keep up with them. We were amazed again. Treating a mother bear with cubs with the casual contempt you would a rabbit - just insane.
It was apparent to us that the bears wanted to cross the road, but the traffic and onlookers kept blocking them. We had terrific views (though the light by now was pretty awful, especially when they were under trees) including getting to watch the cubs go up trees and climb - and in some cases fall - down them again. It really was the full package and we enjoyed it very much. We could have enjoyed it more if the crowd hadn't been so mad. Honestly, the most rabid twitchers on Britain wouldn't treat a rarity like this, much less an animal that could rip them in half.
After several attempts to get ahead of the cars and cross the road - all baulked by the cars moving along to get mega views - the adult got fed up and led the cubs away up the hill to the right. We carried on through the Lamar Valley, didn't see any Wolves but did pick up some additional news of them, and arrived back in Cooke City to head once again for the Beartooth Cafe. This time we got a table without too much difficulty but were served by the village idiot. We got the general idea when he came back three times to check on our drinks order: there were only four of us, we ordered only three different drinks and he had a pad to write them on. He went on to similar demonstrations of intellectual challenge with our food and subsequent drinks orders, but he was genial and trying (in both senses!) so we did our best to be as genial. I had a half rack of pork ribs and Maz went for the Chili SOB and neither of us went away hungry: I had been correct in thinking a full rack of ribs would be Man vs Food. I stuck to the Scapegoat IPA and thoroughly enjoyed it.
John
