This is the last of my images from Yellowstone that I will share right now. It’s sorta a nod to the little sweeties that don’t get all the press. This guy was just along the road that was blocked by a herd of buffalo. How many people took his photo compared to the buffalo? He needs to get a better agent.
On a dayhike up to Martins Park above Low Divide (between the Elwha and North Fork Quinault river valleys in the Olympic National Park), we saw this black bear browsing the fresh greens. We were a little nervous … the above photo was taken with a normal lens … not a telephoto. But we had seen black bears a number of times before and hadn’t found them aggressive. Regardless, we didn’t stay around to do any bear watching. Our nervousness increased quite dramatically when the bear followed us for a mile or so down to near where our campsite was at Low Divide. We took special care to bear proof our food that night.
So I was playing around with various image processing software to see what I could do to improve some of my older images… (this one is from 2017). I had just taken some photos of fall foliage and noticed some elk just down stream from my position, crossing the North Fork Skokomish (just a half mile or so up from Staircase Campground in the Olympic National Park.
I had looked at this image dozens of times over the years, but this was the first time I had ever noticed that there was someone on the other side of the river, watching the elk from behind a log. I can’t tell if they had a camera or not, but I image that there presence was why the elk were crossing. (see below)
I was walking the loop trail at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge when I spotted these baby otters on a small island in the middle of a pond … and I had left my camera at home, just carrying binoculars. I wanted a photo … so hurried my pace, drove home, grabbed my camera and telephoto lens and returned to the Wildlife Refuge. I hiked the mile or so back to the pond, expecting the otter pups to have relocated, but they were still there! And they were curious at my presence.
(The loop trail has since been broken to return the interior of the refuge to a salt water marsh and the refuge has been renamed the Billy Frank Jr. – Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.)
The Olympic Elk (or Roosevelt Elk … Teddy, not FDR) are much easier to see in winter when they are hanging out in the lowlands than in the summer when they wander around much of the Olympic National Park and at some high elevations. The first three shots are of the “Dosewallips herd” … in fact, the first two shots were taken in Dosewallips State Park. Number 3 was taken just across the river in the town of Brinnon … in the school yard. Number 4 is of the Skokomish herd, pictured crossing the North Fork of the Skokomish River at the upper end of Lake Cushman.
