The Yellowstone Phenology Project: 5-9 Grizzly Fishing


Phenology: the study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, 
especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life.


I'm going to try something here. I want to post a photo or video every day through the spring, summer, and fall. Frank C. Craighead Jr's book "A Naturalist Guide to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks" is an amazing resource that walks us chronologically through the seasons, pointing out what animals are present in the valley, what they are eating, what plants are flowering, and how all of the cogs in the ecosystem clock are turning each week. I thought it would be fun to capture, photographically, this annual march through time. Change is the only constant around here. Like Ferris Bueller famously said, "life moves pretty fast. If you don't look up once in a while, you might miss it." Six months from now, I hope to be able to use this little project like a flipbook to watch the seasons unfold and meld chronologically. Here we go,we'll start with a bang.

This young male grizzly has recently emerged from his first solo hibernation without mom (the famous Grizzly 610). He walks the shore, looking for dead cutthroat trout and mountain whitefish that have been frozen, preserved, in ice all winter long.






























    and a bonus video to kick things off!



Flying over Yellowstone

Grand Prismatic Spring


"Kodiak to control, are you in the tower?"
"Negative, I'm at home in my recliner."
"Are we clear for takeoff?"
"One minute, Kodiak, let me look out the window...Yep, air is clear for takeoff."
"Kodiak to control, we are ready for takeoff...as soon as we can taxi a herd of elk off your runway."

With this exchange, we rolled down the Gardiner, Montana airstrip and lifted into the skies above Yellowstone.

Flight path for our maiden voyage


























After lots of finagling over insurance policies, consultations with pilots, and doubts about the reliability of weather conditions in March in the Northern Rockies, we pulled the trigger and included a couple of scenic flyovers into our March Natural Habitat Adventures/World Wildlife Fund programs.

Full disclosure: Many a time I've sat on the benches watching Old Faithful erupt while being thoroughly annoyed by the little private single-props buzzing and circling high above the geyser. People come to the park to experience wildness and wilderness and solitude. Old Faithful is not the place to find peace and quiet in the summer, but a swarm of small aircraft overhead is my nail in the coffin. I hate those things.

Typically, scenic flights are not allowed over the parks, precisely because of the visual and aural upset they cause to those on the ground. A couple years ago, someone figured out that there is a legal loophole allowing private flights to operate as long as photography is the goal. If someone on board has a camera, the whole flight can be green-lit as a photography mission. I imagine this is a loophole that will be closed in coming years.

Fortunately for us, we were actually on a 8-day photography expedition in northern Yellowstone, so there was no denying that our goal was to take pretty pictures. And fortunately for my conscience, the interior of the park is closed to all visitors in mid-March, so our plane would not disturb a single person once we left the northern range.

The flight was spectacular. We traveled from Gardiner all the way to Jackson Hole, admiring the Tetons, the Gros Ventre Valley, the remote Thorofare region of Yellowstone, the Pelican Valley, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Grand Prismatic Spring, and more. We saw bison eking out a cold, snowy life along the shores of Yellowstone Lake. We saw wolf-killed carcasses behind knolls that had blocked our view from the roads all week. It was an opportunity to really appreciate the size and scale of the wild lands out here. I hope you enjoy these photographs of the highlights.

Taking off in Gardiner, MT
























We came across many remote geyser basins in areas inaccessible without a multi-day backpacking trip

Grand Teton
U-shaped valleys, cirques, glacial lakes, and a terminal moraine! TSS' Field Ed team would probably love this image :-)
The Red Hills in the Gros Ventre river valley


Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone



Yellowstone River meandering through the Hayden Valley

Burn mosaic from the 1988 forest fires. Light green are areas that burned.


Grand Prismatic and Excelsior Geyser


The guinea pigs pioneers of our first flyover program! Thanks guys!

The Most Amazing Bird You've Probably Never Heard Of

[This is part three of a series of posts featuring photos from our March programs in Yellowstone with Natural Habitat Adventures and Wildlife Expeditions of Teton Science Schools].

American Dipper courtship posture.






































When I first came to the Yellowstone Ecosystem, there were a couple species I really wanted to see. At the top of the list was this peculiar little bird, the American Dipper. They live along rivers and creeks in the Rocky Mountains from Canada down into Mexico, and forage on a prey that nothing else has figured out quite how to access. It's the entrepreneur of the animal kingdom. For every potential food source, there is something that will eventually figure out how to eat it. Insects breed, lay eggs, hatch, grow, metamorphose, and thrive all over the rocks in turbulent mountain streams. But except for the dippers, nothing has quite figured out how to eat them. Sure, trout wait downstream for bugs that get peeled off their feet by the swift current, but dippers go right to the rocks and pick off insects directly.



Hunting for insects in the creek.


























In a great example of a burgeoning evolutionary trajectory, the Dipper has very few adaptations for its lifestyle. He is a songbird, just like a thrush, a tanager, a waxwing, or a robin. He has no webbed feet or dagger-like bill. What he does have is oxygen-rich blood and a slow metabolism for life in cold water, not to mention some waterproof preening-oil. His biggest asset is its charisma. He dives into the water, paddling the rapids with his wings, sometimes popping up fifty yards downstream, on the other side of a class II or III rapid!

Swimming.


























When he does emerge, he usually does so with a bill full of stoneflies and caddisflies. In the nesting season, he might take these insects and fly right through a waterfall to get to his nest on a dry ledge behind the cascade. If there are other dippers around, he will storm out from behind that waterfall and karate-kick the intruder right into the water.


Territorial dispute.


























He perches on rocks along the shore, bobbing (dipping) up and down, trying to look like the moving water behind him.  "Bird and stream, inseparable," as John Muir said. A female lands nearby, his dipping speeds up, and he starts to sing. His rambling warble sings on and on without pause, almost mimicking the musical sound of the proverbial babbling brook. She starts dipping up and down too and pacing around on her rock. Both birds take off and chase each other over the stream, up into the trees, into the sky, and back over the water, splashing down together right in the middle of an eddying pool.


Courtship flight.



























Watching these dippers along the Gardiner River over the last two weeks was mesmerizing. One of those little jewels in nature you would only find if you already knew where to look.


Gardiner River, and the Boiling River hot spring steaming towards the background.


Bison Controversy in Yellowstone's Northern Range

[This is part two of a series of posts featuring photos from our March programs in Yellowstone with Natural Habitat Adventures and Wildlife Expeditions of Teton Science Schools.]

A big bull interrupting our preparations for a snowshoe hike


























This week in Yellowstone featured the bison. Granted, it’s almost impossible to visit this park without getting stuck in the middle of a bison herd at some point. But the contexts in which we saw these big ice-age behemoths this week really showcased the lives they lead and the hardships they endure.

Bison walk on packed paths to avoid breaking trail in deep snow. This guy picked our path to walk on.

The thick, dark fur on their face protects their skin from the abrasive icy crust they must break to access grass beneath.






























































Bison are built for life in winter. Their massive head and shoulders effortlessly dig through snow to the forage below. Their gut is adapted to pull every last bit of meager nutrition from the dead grass they depend on. Their fur is so well insulated, snow and frost builds up on their backs by the inch. They seem to have a radar for finding the highest-quality food available under any snow depth. They consistently find the easiest travel routes and the safest valleys.

Even with these physical and behavioral adaptations, though, life is still tough. Winter is a time of perpetual starvation, insanely cold temperatures, and serious vulnerability. As winter draws on, ribs and hips become more and more defined. Grass becomes scarce. Wolves become stronger and braver.
Under this pressure, many bison find the roadway and follow it west. They follow it past the Lamar Valley, where their kin were restored to today’s healthy numbers after teetering at the brink of extinction. They follow it past Crystal Creek, the reintroduction site of the one wolf pack that specializes on hunting bison. They follow it past Blacktail Lakes, where a few bulls fall through thin ice and drown every year.


This calf has nearly survived his first Yellowstone winter.

Bill bison walking through the Lamar Valley, the historic Buffalo Ranch in the background.

By the end of the winter, some bison look like skin draped over bones. Green-up can't come soon enough.

Even in winter, there is fresh forage available along the shore of some spring-fed creeks.



































































































They arrive at the Gardiner Canyon, and follow the river downhill to the edge of the park. At this low elevation, the ground is snow-free and the temperatures are spring-like. Having found what seems like an oasis at the end of the bitter winter, the bison walk through the Roosevelt Archway, crossing an invisible but significant border between Yellowstone National Park and Gardiner, Montana. Here, bison are no longer property of the American People. They are not ogled and admired by tourists and naturalists. Instead, they are legally considered escaped livestock. The farther the bison venture beyond the arch, the tighter the rubber band of state tolerance stretches. Eventually, that ecological oasis is replaced by a political minefield.


Behind the gate, bison are managed "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People." Beyond it, they are considered escaped livestock.
































Some bison, you see, carry a disease called brucellosis. This disease causes failed pregnancies and therefore kills the reproductive potential of the herd. The problem is, this disease affects cattle too. Montana is considered a brucellosis-free state with respect to livestock, so stock growers can transport cattle across their state line without penalty, fee, or testing. Should Yellowstone bison intermingle with cattle and transmit brucellosis into domestic herds, the whole state’s brucellosis-free seal would be revoked, with devastating effects to the livestock industry.

So when a few hundred bison venture out of the park into the Gardiner Basin at the wrong time each year, their fate is gloomy. This year, about 600 bison were removed after leaving Yellowstone. In years past, these migrants were killed by the thousands. That still happens, but not with such reckless abandon as in previous years. Instead of an outright firing-line at the border, the herd is now rounded up and brought to slaughter, the meat given to Native American tribes. About 200 bison met this fate this year.


One of the park's biggest bulls looking for fresh grass along the Yellowstone River.



























Upset by the annual annihilation of America’s most treasured bison herd, advocates and managers are now trying to design solutions that please all stakeholders. For instance, researchers have just concluded that with proper quarantine, testing, and culling, you can definitively declare a group of bison “brucellosis-free.” With this stamp of approval, the bison can be brought to Native American reservations to be used as agricultural and cultural resources. Or be brought to Ted Turner’s huge conservation ranches. In the future, the cleared bison may be the source for restoration herds on the American Prairie Reserve or the Tribal National Park.


A small herd of females and calves passing by.



























Only 60 bison were quarantined this year. About 200 were consigned to slaughter. What happens to the remainder? Native American tribes are given special permits to exercise century-old treaty rights to hunt bison off-reservation under their own rules and regulations. These hunts accounted for roughly 263 bison this year. It’s nice to see the federal government following through on some much-needed reparations, especially after we slaughtered 99.999% of America’s bison to starve out the Indians. However, these tribal hunts have meant that gut-piles and bloody snow litter the Gardiner Basin, making for some interesting discussion on wildlife watching excursions like ours. Native Americans are also in disagreement over the ethics of hunting these animals in such circumstances.

Things are looking promising for these big guys. Which is good, because they have enough to worry about as it is. The Montana Supreme Court just ruled that bison may now be legally tolerated in roughly 400,000 acres outside the north and west entrances. Also, the World Wildlife Fund and the Intertribal Buffalo Council are working together to establish tribal quarantine facilities so that more wandering bison can be held and transferred to reservations and restoration projects instead of being killed.


A train of bison walking through the Gardiner Canyon, heading towards the park's boundary.


























Hopefully, with continued conservation efforts, fewer of these Yellowstone migrants will be economic nuisances to the cattle industry, and more will become the pioneers of new herds across the Great Plains.


An hour-old bison calf standing for the very first time. May 2013.

Photographing Yellowstone's Northern Range: Part 1


Barronette Peak in Northeastern Yellowstone. Mountain goats ford through snowdrifts draped over these 12,000 ft outcrops.





















The Wildlife Expeditions team just came back from two weeks in the Northern Range of Yellowstone, leading Natural Habitat Adventure's two new departures called "Photographing Yellowstone's Wild Wolves." This was one of the most challenging tasks we've ever undertaken, considering that wolves generally don't want anything to do with humans. So we put together an itinerary featuring six full days in the heart of North America's best wolf habitat to have the best chance possible. Each morning we were in prime locations to watch Mother Nature's show unfold before us. We saw fantastic wolf behavior through our spotting scopes, but photograph them we did not.

Photographing American Dippers along Lava Creek.

















However, my mantra for finding wildlife is: "Find the food, find the animal." If you're looking for trout, find where the bugs spawn. If you're looking for moose, find where the willow bushes are budding out. By extension, if you're searching for Yellowstone's keystone predator, the gray wolf, you'll come across nearly everything in the food web in the process. We put ourselves in the best places to see wolves, and walked away with beautiful, bursting photographic portfolios of Yellowstone's winter diversity. I'll be posting some themed entries to try to capture a cross-section of what we encountered these weeks.

Elk briefly investigating us before returning to foraging in fresh snow in the Jardine highlands.


























To start things off, I wanted to thank our travelers for being the pioneers of this new itinerary. The departures were sold out only a few hours after they were announced. I hoped our group would therefore be the easy-going type that would enthusiastically jump at whatever we wanted to throw at them. Turned out this was true, and then some. We had the time and flexibility to walk along rivers photographing dippers, to wait an hour or more for a herd of bison to arrange themselves just so in a landscape shot, and to snowshoe off-trail to a waterfall that neither guide had been to (which I am now revealing to the eleven of you who followed me!). Thank you all!

While photographing duck and dippers on the Gardiner River, an eagle flew in to scoop up scraps from a winter-kill carcass.



























Yellowstone's Northern Range can be best defined by its diversity. The western side of the range is largely snow-free and spring-like. This oasis under 5,000 ft in elevation is already seeing spring arrivals like bluebirds and meadowlarks. It is the winter destination for many bison and elk that have left the high plateaus looking for more accessible food. As you work your way east across the range, the landscape becomes wintry, stark, and extreme. The bison are frosty and the rivers are icy. Cooke City, at the easternmost corner of the range, is under so much snow, you're better off parking your truck and snowmobiling down main street (the only street). The dwellers of Cooke are dreaming about their upcoming vacations to Texas and the French Riviera.

Black-billed Magpies en-route to a carcass, perfectly demonstrating different points in their wing beat.




A magpie picking lice and ticks from the coat of a shedding cow elk outside Mammoth Hot Springs. Mutualism at its best!



























Bull elk on a rainy day. South-facing knolls like this one are often greening up while the surrounding landscape is still under feet of snow.

Good Nature Travel: Alone with Wolves in the Lamar Valley

The Natural Habitat Adventures/World Wildlife Fund Travel Blog has featured one of my travelogues from a recent Yellowstone winter wildlife expedition. Check it out here:
Good Nature Travel: Alone with Wolves in the Lamar Valley

This herd of bison left the park  for lower elevations, where snow is shallower and temperatures are warmer. They feed in the grassland beneath Devil's Slide 

Encounters in Yellowstone

I never enjoy hearing that alarm go off at 4 AM in Cooke City, but I have learned to treasure this morning. It is the moment when our group is finally tied together-- in the way many groups are united-- by a common uncomfortable experience. My travelers have to finally ante up. Up to this point, they have just had to climb into the vehicles and let us whisk them away to amazing places in (generally) total comfort. But this morning is when folks face the facts that wolf watching is never easy. No matter how fresh the fruit, how experienced the guides, or how nice the equipment, there is no way to get around the reality that the best experiences in this ecosystem happen at first light, if they happen at all. Discomfort is required.

I like getting to breakfast early to watch the group arrive over a cup of tea. Many folks stumble into the dim café, sit down next to the fireplace, and quietly look down at their cup of coffee, groggily sipping away. Others come in with their guns drawn, hollering about the snowmobilers ripping down main street at 3 in the morning. Others arrive in a bewildered and disheveled haze, clearly not having woken up this early in years. The most straitlaced traveler lets his guard down a bit, arriving in purple sweatpants and eating his bacon with his hands. Everything smells like coffee and blueberry pancakes. There is a blizzard outside that has to be navigated in the darkness to get to the restaurant from the hotel a hundred yards away.

As we rounded the corner, I looked to the right to respond to a traveler sitting in my passenger seat, and noticed sheep feet whiz by on the cliff edge just out the window. I screeched to a halt and reversed, and we were able to spend half an hour enjoying this big ram enjoying some dead grasses growing between rocky outcrops. The deep cut bands in the horn indicate the age of the sheep. The horns grow year-round, but much more slowly in the winter because of the poor forage quality. Each of the prominent bands represents one winter that this sheep has survived.

Our naturalist friend Dan Hartman has these inquisitive pine martens living around his cozy log cabin. A world-class naturalist of an endangered breed, Dan invites us into his home to share stories and cookies with us. Occasionally, one of these beautiful martens appears just outside the living room window to listen in on Dan's tales.

When the temperature drops, steam explodes from Yellowstone's thermal features. A frosty morning along the Firehole River. Many of Yellowstone's largest hot springs and geysers drain into this river, keeping it open all winter long. Bison congregate along the riverbank to forage on exposed vegetation right along the shore. Every winter morning in Yellowstone feels like the first time that humans have witnessed this magic place.

In the summer, as many as 5,000 people might congregate along the boardwalks to watch each eruption of Old Faithful. This night, there were four of us. All alone, we could hear the water gurgling inside the geyser cone and feel the water blasting into the sky. The steam froze instantly and geyser snow fell on our noses.


After a cold, misty morning, every branch is coated in ice, turning this burned skeleton forest into a crystal chandelier. It is often after the most unbearable weather that we are rewarded with nature's most beautiful shows.

Alpenglow on the Tetons reminds me to appreciate this view each time I pass by. The burst of color lasts only a minute. This show precedes every clear sunrise, making sure that I never regret waking up in the dark in this valley.


Trumpeter Swans fly north to Yellowstone to access the rivers and streams kept open by the influx of geothermal waters. After a long bath and preening session, this swan extends his wings to ensure that his feathers are aligned just so. This bird, once threatened with extinction due to feather trade overharvest, was rediscovered and recovered in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. This region is now one of the best places in the country to see this magnificent bird.





























I go outside and shovel a foot of snow off the roof of the vehicle. Then I figure out which of the four gas pumps in town will turn on that morning. I need four-wheel drive just to make a turn around the pump without sliding into the dozen snowmobiles lined up next to the service garage. The only lights in town are coming from the Sinclair gas sign, the inside of our cozy restaurant, and a streetlight down the road illuminating a dog and nothing else of importance.


My anxiety builds alongside the group’s. You can be in the right place (Yellowstone’s northern reaches), at the right time (before first light), with every possible controllable variable under control. Then all you can do is hope. You’ve flown in from New York or New Zealand, paid a thousand dollars or a million, been motivated by mere curiosity or by a lifetime dream to see a wolf in the wild, but the animals are the great equalizers. They will show up or they won’t. At some point, between bites of muffin or sips of coffee, this realization gradually materializes in every traveler, and we roll out of Cooke City, unified, into the first glow of dawn.