Thursday, May 25, 2023 Today is my last day here for this trip. I leave for home tomorrow and expect to arrive in Saturday. It's been a good trip. I've seen lots of wolves and bears. I've seen a lot of old friends and met a whole ton of people, showing them the wolves and helping them understand how their lives work.
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Wednesday, May 24, 2023 Back at Slough Creek today. We saw pups and there was a carcass. Yesterday, off to the west of the den area, a bison carcass appeared. It wasn't there the day before, but when we got there yesterday, there it was. There was some feeding on it, but today's was much better. For about a half hour, we had 2 wolves just going to town on it: Later, on the way back to camp, I saw 8 bears – 5 black and 3 grizzly. Here's the closest of the bunch – a black bear:
Friday, May 19,2023 A decent day. The wolves at the den were mostly quiet. We would see a pup briefly every now and then. The real excitement was before I got to the den. At Blacktail Ponds, there was an elk, neck deep in the water, and a wolf, lurking around the edge. The elk tried to get out of the water on the west side of the pond, but the wolf was right there, so it moved to the east side and tried there. After 6 or 8 attempts, it finally got out. It was a large bull elk. It just stood there, obviously tired and cold. The wolf came over and faced off with it. That's where the video starts. It's kind of long with lots of parts where the wolf is just standing there, looking like it is pondering its options. In a match like this – single wolf and healthy bull elk, the elk almost always wins. Interesting parts start at: 0:18 Elk moves and wolf runs 2:15 Wolf tentatively approaches elk 3:05 Wolf approaches elk again and makes its way past From there, it just ...
Wednesday, May 17,2023 A good day. Lots of wolf activity this morning. We briefly saw several pups, had lots of wolf interaction, heard howling, and watched a group go off on a hunt. Not much for bears, but here's a short video of a big greeting scrum before they went off hunting: I've found a phone-to-scope adapter that will let me react quicker to events like this, so next year's videos should be better.
Tuesday, May 16,2023 I spent yesterday on camp things – grocery shopping, dealing with fresh and waste water and moving camp as my 14 days at Carbella was almost up. Today was a slow day. Not many wolves, and, a far as we could tell, they weren't doing much. A friend, Bob, and I were up on a hill watching. We saw what we thought were shadows, but now we realize were really the pups. What we didn't know was that folks at another spot were also seeing the pups from a better angle. We just thought they were shadows. Aside from that, there were a few grizzlies and a black bear. The black bear was mostly hidden in the trees, so here's a picture of the people looking at it:
Sunday, May 14,2023 Bears! The wolf watching was slow this morning. Nothing interesting happened, but I did learn why the pups are late coming out of the den. Rick McIntyre, the wolf expert, has behavior notes going back to just after the reintroduction. This pack dug out the den we are watching – we call it the sage den – about 10 years ago. Rick went back in his notes and discovered that each year they have used that den, the pups didn't emerge until about 2 weeks after all the others. The thought is that the exit from the den is so steeply sloped, they can't climb out of it until they are bigger. So, we probably have another week or so to wait. Meanwhile, I've been seeing bears. 7 separate bears, all grizzlies yesterday and 10 today – 7 grizzlies and 3 black bears. The black bears were interesting. I was going up to investigate the peregrine falcon nest near Calcite Springs. On the way, at Rainy Lake was a bear jam – a mom black bear and 2 yearling cubs: ...