Tuesday May 29
The weather was
simply gorgeous. We could actually see the mountains today! For two days, the
mountains played hide and seek behind the wintery mix. But today, the
mountainside presented bright, white jagged edges covered in fresh snow with wisps
of clouds swirling about the tips. It
was a gorgeous day!
Still on the
hunt for #610, we took a dirt road that hovers above the Snake River. It was
quite desolate but as we turned a bend we saw a large group of female elk
running fast. We aren’t certain but we believe a black wolf caused the panic.
Through binoculars I saw a short black furry mess as it chased two of the elk. There
just wasn’t enough detail to be certain.
With our tummies
growling, we headed back to the trailer with what was to be a quick stop at Pelican
Creek for a landscape photo. However, I spied a fuzzy animal scurrying between
sage brush about 100 yards away. I lose sight of her and tell Rick, "It’s
smaller than a fox and bigger than a ground squirrel!" At 50 yards away, I
see her scurrying by again, her tail just twitching like crazy. Finally, I spot
her in a tree, still unsure exactly what this creature is. After several
minutes of her watching me and me watching her, I finally learn she is a yellow bellied
marmot. I take a few photos and she waves me off with her twitching tail.
"Okay, Momma. I will leave you alone to your young ones." I can only
imagine that is why she scurried across the distance of the meadow like that
with a twitching tail to boot.
That afternoon,
we make our way to Moose Wilson road, well on the other side of the park. We
find ourselves looking down on another female moose. She grazes for a bit, and
then beds down in the new growth surrounding the tall willows.
Soon after, a
woman from England spots another moose across the creek in dead willow. He
finally peeks out and it is a juvenile moose. Rick and I actually saw him
earlier in the day crossing the road but he slipped into the woods as quickly
as he came out so we did not attempt to take his photo. This time, however, we
took plenty of shots of him eating and cruising through the creek. At one point
he came too close to the female moose; she stood straight up and kept her eye
on him, ready to defend her bed. He realized this and ran to the other end of
the creek, finally slipping out of site.
We only had a
couple of hours of light so we went down the road a bit to find beaver we had
photographed last year. Sure enough an hour later, our patience prevailed and
we watched a beaver swim out of her large hut into a clump of willows and chewed
on a fresh branch. We moved our position several times because she was obscured
by twigs and limbs. About twenty minutes later, to our surprise, another beaver
made his way over to her. They rubbed noises as they greeted one another and
then began to frolic around. They shared a twig, but soon parted. It was an
awesome sight. Something we had never seen before
What a perfect
ending to a gorgeous day!
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