Yellowstone - Day 4c - Old Faithful Basin

August 26, 2018

We still had a lot of daylight left after we finished our hike, so we drove a couple of miles more to visit the Old Faithful Basin. We barely had enough time to determine when Old Faithful would go off and rush to get to the balcony over the front entrance to the Old Faithful Inn, which is my favorite place from which to watch Old Faithful.  We found seats near the front of the benches and visited with the people sitting around us for a couple of minutes before the show began.

Show is starting

Here comes the water spout

Near the end of the erruption

Then we returned to the Visitor Center to figure out what we wanted to do,  as we didn't have enough time to see everything, and several more of the geysers go off on a schedule.  We got a list of times for a few of the geysers that would erupt while we were there.  I also made sure to get the location of the Anemone Geyser as I think it is the best one for an ADHD person to watch. I goes off every few minutes and cycles through filling the basin, making the boil, then geyser, and then having the basin empty in a few minutes.

The trail soon crosses the Firehole River

View looking back at Old Faithful Inn

Anemone filling up and boiling

And going off

And draining

Anemone  Geyser is actually two geysers that are interconnected and close together. How one goes off can affect the other. I think we were looking at Little Anemone. Click here for the full story on them.

We then had to hurry to get over to Castle Geyser to be there for the window time of the eruption. It went off early in the possible time and gave us great views in the ever cloudier sky.

View of the Firehole River and Castle Geyser

I still had to stop to capture pictures of colors and shapes....

....And this marmot

This looked like a painting by a person, not some lichens

I was disappointed that Riverside Geyser would not go off this day until after dark

Julie in front of erupting Castle Geyser

Castle Geyser erupting - water pours over the right side

I was about walked out at this point and was getting blisters on my toes. Julie, of course, was still going strong. She wanted to go on to Daisy Geyser which was about to erupt. I wanted to start the walk back to the car.  We decided she could do about the same amount of walking, if she visited Daisy Geyser and a couple of more of the neighboring geysers, then walk on to Black Sand Basin. I should be able to get there in time to pick her up. 

I got there in plenty of time even with time to walk most of the basin and take a few pictures. I was was almost back to the car when Julie arrived. I waited for her to check out the basin before we left. 

Supper pretty views here. That is a stream side in the background

A view down that stream side

Another field view

I had promised Julie that we would look for wildlife on the way home, so we turned west at Madison and checked out several pullouts. We lucked out on the last on before it got too dark for pictures and found several elk, including a young bull.  We also watched a cow swim the river.

We took this picture from the road which was about six feet above the elk - hence the foreshortening

Cow elk crossing the Madison River

By this time it was dark and we still had another thirty minutes of driving to get back to camp.... and supper.... and a campfire... and making plans for the following day.  We still have three more days to go.  Stay tuned.

I look forward to your comments.

Red Rock Lake Critters

There are many animals that share the refuge with the swans and other birds. Some of them are seen frequently and some only rarely, but all them are exciting to watch.

The most visible animals in the summer are the pronghorn antelope and the cattle that browse on our pastures, on a grazing plan. I saw several herds of antelopes on my trip  to the refuge. I see at least one almost day and usually see thirty or more any given day I'm out and about. They are fascinating to me since they used to be the prey animal of the American Cheetah which is now extinct.  But they still depend on their blazing speed - in bursts some can attain 55+ mph and they can maintain 35 mph for several miles. But they can't jump and fences need places for them to crawl underneath.

Pronghorn antelope females

Pronghorn buck

My favorite animal to find are moose. I seldom see them because they live away from the roads in the willow flats.  But if I'm out early or late, I sometimes see them, often when the light is too low for good pictures. I  recently saw these twins when I had left before 6:00 A to go tend the grayling eggs - and of course look for wildlife.

Female yearling moose twins

Then I realized they wanted to cross the road and stopped to let them do so

They continued towards Upper Red Rock Lake, after checking out a sandhill crane

I posted a picture of the moose on facebook and someone sent back a picture of them with their mother just a few weeks earlier.  I imagine the mother is about to or has just given birth to a new offspring and has cut these girls loose.  Last year I watched a mother and about a two month old baby come out into the road.  A minute later we saw a young bull moose approach them.  The mother walked over and licked him and then the three of them continued up the road toward where we were standing and photographing them from behind our truck doors.

You looking at me?

This may be the young male I photographed last year - he was at the same location

We also have lots of elk on the refuge but they get hard to find in the summer months.  I saw this herd of females on my arrival trip to the refuge. I've had distant views a few times since but haven't identified any bucks, yet. 

These girls definitely need a makeover

Coats look better a few weeks later. 

We have both mule deer and white-tailed deer on the refuge. The next picture  is of part of a larger herd of mule deer. We have fewer white-tailed deer and I'm so used to seeing them I don't usually try to get a picture.

Some mule deer have recently been documented migrating 150 miles twice a year. For the full story click here.

Mule Deer

The animal I see the least is the American badger. I only saw one here last year. This year, while photographing sandhill cranes, I noticed a white spot about halfway between me and them.  When I focused on it I saw this.

American badger

He watched me a couple of minutes, then went on about his business.  He turned and sniffed to the right, then to the left, before moving out of sight in the sagebrush.

Checking out the smells

A very commonly seen animal is the Wyoming ground squirrel.  The squirrels provide food for large raptors, like red-tailed hawk and Swainson's hawks. In the last few days, I've been seeing half grown babies running everywhere.

Wyoming Ground Squirrel are out - and making more food for raptors

I've started to help get the fences ready for the cattle that will arrive here this summer. I hammered staples into fence posts for about 1/3 of a mile a few days ago.  Have about a mile more to go.  I replace missing stables and drive down staples that are working loose.

 But we already have close view of cows pasturing next door the refuge.

The one animal I'm DYING to see is a wolf.  While I was surveying my bluebird boxes, one of the interns came on the radio and said, "I'm looking at a wolf and he's just sitting and looking at me. " He was where our fence runs into the mountain.  The wolf was only about 40' from him at one point.

We also have foxes.  I've seen one to far away to photograph but it lives in the meadow near the bunkhouse, where I also have my garden so I'm hoping to get a closer look soon.

On a personal note, as this comes out, I'll be leaving for a little camping, exploring, and hiking trip.  We are to have three days of sunny weather so I'll do a mourning dove survey on the way home Tuesday.  We have never had any doves on that survey so I think it will be pretty easy, except I have to start at sunrise, which is 5:44A here now.  This is my first camping trip since I got here so I'm pretty excited. Hope you are having a great weekend as well.

Season of the Elk

The elk are in their rut and have been putting on quite a show for the last several weeks. ( Elk ruts can last up to twelve weeks, depending if young elk are breeding - they become breeders later than do older elk.)  Elk are the second largest members of the deer family - moose are the largest - and are very beautiful to watch. Their bugle includes a grunt at the beginning, which can only be heard a fairly close distances,  and a whistle at the end. Their rut period lasts up to twelve weeks.

The largest males are extremely stressed from having to defend their harems from marauders.  Our most dominant male now has a herd of about 30 cows and calfs.  He spends most of his time keeping his harem together and moving from one end of the harem to the other bugling out his warnings to get lost, NOW.

The other evening, while closing the refuge, I found two young males fighting through a cross fence.  Then a big male came their way.  The  young male on the same side of the fence suddenly had an important appointment elsewhere. However the young male on the far side of the fence kept talking trash. I didn't stay to see the outcome of this encounter.

For the last few days, the most dominant male is holding his harem behind the visitor center. I had good enough light on this morning, to get pictures of him defending his harem and chasing off a younger male.

Bull with part of his herd.  He patrols constantly and will push his harem closer if
another bull comes near

It takes a lot of work to get and keep the girls

Warning bugle

He has tightened up the harem - notice the calves

Then he had to chase off a competitor ....

into the staff parking lot

Where the inttruder takes a breather - all those puncture wounds gotta hurt

Another bull from a week ago, at Mission Creek

His harem was smaller

There is hardly time for eating - the bulls are watching, walking, bugling, and herding females

Another wanna be

On a personal note, we are all rushing to get ready for Roundup.  My jobs today included going to town and picking up supplies for cleaning, doing the biological work on the bison, and painting. I also used 4 gallons of bleach to disinfect a large room in the old slaughter house that has been invaded by pigeons.  (Thankfully, this was the third cleaning - I bless Bob for doing the really dirty cleaning. ) We'll be using the room to centrifuge the blood samples we'll take from the calves.  It was too windy to clean the bathrooms that are full of dead bugs, so I plan on doing that very early tomorrow,  as well as sweeping and rinsing the room I worked on today.  I also have to paint some new parts in the coral tomorrow or Friday and work in the Visitor Center a few hours.

I'm not going to be very regular with my blogs for the next few weeks since I'll be leaving here next weekend and going to visit my old boss and friend, Cindy. for whom I worked at Okefenokee, at Dinosaur National Monument, and then will be heading to Texas for a long paddling weekend with lots of my friends at Caddo Lake. But eventually I'll get time to edit pictures, write blogs and get back on the Internet.

But I will tell you all about roundup before I leave here.

A Visit to Rocky Mountain National Park

My friend Carol Bell invited me to visit her at her cabin in Grand Lake, Colorado, where she lives while volunteering at Rocky Mountain National Park. I checked the mileage - 627 miles from Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and figured I could get there and back and have a couple of days to visit in a long weekend.

So I'm now visiting her and having a wonderful time, in spite of a day caught short by rain and lightening.  I got here Friday  in in time to relax on her deck and enjoy her hummingbirds.  She has three species coming to the feeders - broadtails, a rufus, and a calliope.  The day was getting cloudy, then got rainy so I didn't get pictures of most of them but did get a mediocre picture of the calliope.

Calliope Hummingbird

After a delicious supper, all cooked by Carole, we went out to the park for a few hours.  We saw at least 60 elk and three moose.

Part of a large herd of elk cows and calves

Young moose cow

Our plan for Saturday was to drive through the park, stopping to look at beautiful  views and take a series of short walks to look for birds. Our first stop was to look at the Never Summer Mountain Range, just starting to get lit by the rising sun. I enjoyed the flowers blooming along the road and got Carol to stop ane let me walk back to look at Indian paint brush and other wildflowers. While I was doing that, Carol got a quick look at a small group of pine grosbeaks.

First look at Never Summer Mountains

Roadside view

Our next stop was at Lake Irene.  We saw several species of birds, including a and a red crossbill, a lifer for me. All my pictures were blurry but Carol got a beautiful picture and let me use it.  We also saw a Clark's nutcracker. And I enjoyed watching a really cut golden-mantled ground squirrel. And I was excited to find what I thought was a large patch of  liatris was actually elephant head.  This plant  grows like liatris and is the same color but the individual flowers look like elephant heads.

Lake Irene

Red crossbill

Clark's nutcracker

Golden-mantled ground squirrel fattening up 

Close-up of elephant head

Then we went on up to the Alpine meadows to unsuccessfully look for the white-tailed ptarmigan; The views were lovely and we saw several species of birds, including mountain bluebirds and a horned lark.  But no ptarmigan.  We met a man who works for Audubon and Carol told him where the bird had been seen. I enjoyed just walking through the wildflowers and looking at wonderful views.

King's Crown

Forest Canyon Overlook

Lava Cliffs

We planned to do more birding in the afternoon, over on the east side, but while eating a late lunch there,  it began to rain in a series of short showers. Each shower got progressively stronger and then we heard thunder and decided to come home. We both enjoyed a short nap before I worked on editing my pictures while Carol  cooked us another fabulous supper of pork loin, tomato and cucumber salad, and sauteed cabbage.

Tall coneflower and bee seen at our lunch stop

Our plans for Sunday are to run a shuttle so we can hike downhill from the Alpine Visitor Center- after all, it starts at 11,700 feet and comes down to the continental divide. We'll only have to hike 4.5 miles by doing it one-way.  And sometimes white-tailed ptarmigan are seen there so I still have hopes of seeing one.  Carol is also taking me to the volunteer get-together where we have a pot-luck of snack foods and a campfire.