Monthly Archives: February 2014

Crawfish Bridge

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Crawfish Bridge1264Crawfish Bridge Yellowstone               click to enlarge

This is one of my favorite stops whenever I enter Yellowstone. It’s right inside the park not very far from the South Entrance gate. There is a small trail that leads down to the river and ends where the river flows over a steep cliff face creating Crawfish falls.

The area and the falls are not very big and it is an intimate setting that doesn’t get much traffic. Once while I was there the conditions were such, it being high noon, that a beam of sunlight came straight down to illuminate the mist at the edge of the falls and cast a gorgeous rainbow across the ravine.

I always stop and check to see if that will occur again but so far it hasn’t. So that untaken image joins all the others in my “Pictures I Didn’t Take” portfolio. Unfortunately that portfolio is stored somewhere in the temporal lobe of my tattered and battered brain, which is not the safest place, but I can still access it as long as the hippocampus cooperates. There are too many images in that portfolio, and of course they’re all the best I’ve never taken, without flaws, perfectly composed and exposed and although they’re all crisp and sharp right now, I see a few in the background that are starting to fade.

Perhaps the cosmos will smile on me one more time and I’ll get to move that image from the “Pictures I Didn’t Take” portfolio to the “Yeah I got It” one. Wish me luck.

Hump Day

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HumpDay2562Buffalo bull – Soda Butte – Yellowstone     click to enlarge

I rarely wait for images to happen. Let me rephrase that, I rarely wait for imagined images to happen. Now if I’m shooting a grizzly and he’s just laying there not doing anything I’ll wait all day for him to wake his lazy butt up and do something. Bird in the hand kind of thing. But to go somewhere and think, I bet a buffalo bull will walk by this spot and line up perfectly with the other shapes in the image, well, I don’t do that.

But on this day I stopped because there was a snow squall moving through the Lamar valley out near Soda Butte and I wanted to get a shot of it. I noticed that the Soda butte formation lined up with the mountain in the background and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if a buffalo bull walked by and all three humps lined up.

As luck would have it there were buffalo in the background but they were way off and it didn’t look like anything was going to happen so I began packing up. Then I noticed that a few were starting to move my way. Then some more. I thought no way. There isn’t a chance that they were going to walk clear over here and then line up. That only happens in movies and the occasional blog posting.

But soon that’s exactly what happened. Only the ones that walked in the right place were small cows and yearlings, the big bulls seemed to understand what I wanted so they immediately took an alternate route, never coming closer that a hundred yards of the spot. Buffalo after buffalo walked by perfectly aligned but the shot I wanted was of one of the big bulls with his massive hump placed directly in front of Soda butte and the mountain behind so the three humps as it were, lined up for the image I wanted.

To shorten the story because I know you’ve got more important things to do, finally, finally after waiting through at least three different herds I was about to give up. I began tearing down and packing up again when I noticed this one last bull making his way towards me. Just slightly below the Soda butte formation is a steep rise they needed to climb if they were going to walk in front of the rock formation, and at that point there was a fork in the trail. If you took one side of the fork, the right side, they walked in front of Soda butte and if you took the other, the wrong side, they walked around behind me and had no chance of being in the shot. All the cows and calves had taken the ‘right’ fork, the bulls, everyone of them, had taken the ‘wrong’ fork. This is nature’s response to the “best laid plans of mice and men, oft time go awry* ” line used by everyone from Burns and Steinbeck and now the buffalo, to educate you about the futility of trying to influence Nature.

The bull stopped at the fork and seemed to consider things for several moments then took the right fork of the trail that put him exactly where he needed to be. Out of a couple of hundred buffalo that walked past me that afternoon he was the only bull to walk where he needed to and in doing so, present this image to me. I have a plaque in my office commemorating the event and I have placed him in my will. It only took 4½ hours of frustration to get exactly two images of him in the perfect place. This is why I don’t wait for imagined images. I just got sucked in to the situation, kind of like playing the dollar slots in Vegas. You know it’s going to hit with the next dollar and you play until you’re hitchhiking home.

4½ hours and two images. I guess it was time well spent, getting snowed on, feet and hands freezing, taking the buffalo’s name in vain because they wouldn’t do what I wanted them to, torn between walking away and giving it that last shot, so to speak, but I’m glad I stayed. This is one of my favorite images. I hope you enjoy it as well.

* I know that the original phrase is “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley ” as used in the original Robert Burns poem, but there are only three people in the western speaking world that know what the hell “Gang aft agley” means and I’m not one of them. So I used the more familiar usage.

Spring Is In The Air

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SpringIsInTheAir Goldens9013Golden Eagles Colorado                        click to enlarge

Another sure sign of Spring is when the Goldens start settling into their nests. Here we see a pair who have just recently moved into an old Victorian they found on the cliff face near a lake and like all newlyweds they are trying to make it their own. One of them is returning with a new railing for the library while its mate looks on critically. These old places need constant attention and it also has to be made baby-safe as they are expecting twins in a few weeks.

This image was made on Jan 27th and even though the area immediately fell into the deepest cold of winter this place stayed relatively warm and toasty due to its south by southwest orientation. The red sandstone absorbs the heat of the sun and kept the nest 15-20° warmer than the surrounding areas.

Those loyal readers with an eagle eye (EPI*) will notice the painterly look to the cliff face, almost as if it is a watercolor. This occurs because the nest is almost a quarter-mile away and it takes every bit of resolving power the long glass has to coax the photons onto the camera’s sensor to create the image. When you consider that you can barely see the birds with your naked eye from that distance it’s a wonder that an image can be made at all.

The big news however is not the difficulty in creating the image but the fact that there is an image to be made. Goldens settling in to start the season means that Spring is on the way. Whoa…., you know what that means,right? Soon it will be warm. T-shirts, flip-flops, eagle watching, picture-taking, warm. Are you excited? I knew that you would be. OK then, Lets do it. Lets have Spring.

*Every Pun Intended

Conversations Overheard

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Conversations Overheard2125Sandhill Cranes Yellowstone                 click to enlarge

Inadvertent Eavesdropping. You know the kind where you’re walking along and you suddenly hear a snippet of conversation from the people passing by, or you’re seated at a coffee shop and the next table is talking just loud enough that you cannot help but overhear. The little bit you do overhear is just tantalizing enough that you want to hear more, you want the rest of the story, but they move away or lower their voices and you can’t hear the finish.

It makes you want to run after them and ask how it turned out, or ask what did they say then, or even add something from what you would have said. This doesn’t make you a bad person. We’re conditioned by our surroundings to want to be included, after all if they’re saying it loud enough for you to hear, they must want you to participate, or at least give you enough information so that you’re not thinking about it all afternoon.

When seeing these two Sandhill cranes walking together apparently having one of those kind of conversations where you talk about everything and nothing, just letting the words roll over you, getting more comfort from the sounds than the content, you can image what they might be saying.

“Yeah I landed in the corn field next to him and all of sudden he’s all like, what are you doing here, don’t be following me around. Remember what I told you the last time…”

“I’m sure she’s sorry for going to that party. I warned her those birds were no good, now she’s laying eggs all over the place and hasn’t a clue who the …..”

“That damn Ray Everett, he let Cleda get hooked on the that weird grain they’re raising over at that research place and now she hasn’t been watching the kids and she let them fool around at the edge of the pond and that coyote came along and before you could say….”

” I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, I can’t remember how to get back to the refuge and yesterday I landed at the…”

“You can’t be serious. You’re going to be laying more eggs? We haven’t gotten the last batch out of the nest yet. We can’t afford….”

“Yeah then he showed up molting with half his feathers gone and wanted to…”

” I saw a couple of the those two-legged things back behind some bushes and they must have been having a hell of a fight because they had torn each others clothes half  off and one was ….”

“I am sick to death of this back and forth, back and forth, why don’t we find a place and just stay….”

“It’s nice  today isn’t it? I just love it when the suns out and the winds not blowing. I could stay here for…..”

“Is that guy listening to us? I’m going to go over there and shove my beak up….”

All right folks, time to head back to the truck. I’ve got places to be and I’ve got to see if whats-her-face is still willing to….”

Bud Tender

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BudTender4405Butterfly – Butterfly Pavilion                                             click to enlarge

Because we’re living in the new Ice Age and any self-respecting wild thing has checked itself into the local Marriott to get out of the cold, I had to resort to finding wild things that were indoors. That meant going to the Butterfly Pavilion which has a gigazon of wild things of the insectoid persuasion. We’re talking primarily butterflies or as they’re known in the trade Butterfliticus Alotii.

According to The Institutes leading Plantologist, Bud Tender, who is an expert on plants and things that grow in the ground, plants and more particularly their flowers are the leading source of food for these multicolored winged farmers of the air.

When you first enter their domain there is a whirlwind of confusion as these gorgeous creatures swirl and dance around you, flitting here and there on butterfly business, seemingly at random, but gradually one begins to make sense of what appears to be chaos.

As you begin to sort out the colors and sizes and watch what each is doing it becomes apparent that there is order here. Each group seems to have their own purpose and goes about it with determination and zeal. This guy pictured above, is part of a group of Butterfliticus known more casually by its latin name of Budizoid Tenderii and it has a very specific job.

Since all these guys eat flower parts, flowers are of paramount importance here. They need to be watched carefully, tended with great attention and groomed for their arrival at the dinner table. That’s this guys job. We’ll call him Phil. Phil’s seen here testing this bud for burstiness, which is like a super important butterfly job, because as soon as it pops everybody, and I mean everybody and their cousin, and their cousin’s dog, is going to be swarming this baby sticking their little proboscis into it until it is just a shrunken shell of it’s former self. Harsh as it may sound it is just life on the butterfly frontier.

Although this has been a change from my dreary life of shooting Lions, and Tigers and Bears it has been an interesting way to pass the cold, cold day outside. Now if I could just find the Cannibal, Zombie, Killer, Vampire Assassin butterflies that they say lurk in the deep shadows where the Devil’s Tongue Flower blooms I’ll consider the day a success.

Happy Valentines Day

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BeMyValentine0531-9076Courting Black Bears Yellowstone                                click to enlarge

I couldn’t bear it if you’re not my Valentine…

Yeah I know it’s cheesy, I could bearly stand it myself and I wrote it, but it’s Valentine’s Day. You’re allowed a little cheesy-ness. So to all of you out there who don’t have a Valentine and some of you who do, “Be My Valentine”. Feel free  to visualize that written in red on a little white heart along with “Be Mine” “Kiss Me” and the ever popular “I Love You”.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Looking West, Into Tomorrows Weather

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IsThatSpring0066Mountain Goat Mt. Evans Colorado                              Click to enlarge

Is that Spring? From up here on the top of Mt. Evans at 14,000′ you can see for nearly a month in a straight line and it looks like way out there, just past a week or two, there might be some Spring. If you stand real still and look hard just past that snow squall you can see the tip of it.

That would be good if it is. I have to use this picture from early spring which was July that year because they, the people who run this place and have the keys to the gate, won’t even let you up here until Memorial day which is May 26th this year and then you are probably going to get snowed on, big time. There isn’t much that is more memorable than standing in a brisk 45-50 mph wind in a spring snowstorm at 14,000′.

I heard once that for every 1000′ in elevation you go it is the same as traveling 300 miles north. I don’t know if that is true or not but if it is, then standing on the top of Mt Evans at 14,000′ puts you close to 479 miles past the North Pole. The North pole being approximately 3721 miles from Denver, give or take a mile or two. I didn’t even know you could go past the north pole in terms of cold. Maybe you have to go straight up those last 479 miles to get colder. But at this point I think cold is cold, right? I mean how much more are you going to freeze your keester off 479 miles in space than you would at the North pole. A frozen keester is a frozen keester. But if you’re one of those that are always looking for the ultimate experience then State Highway 5 will get you there.

But then we were looking for Spring not a way to freeze your keester off, so I recommend waiting just a little while longer and there is every chance that Spring will come to you. No traveling, no climbing mountains, no freezing one’s keester off. Just wait a bit then go outside. It should be Spring. Enjoy it.