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: ...
Friday, May 12,2023 Well, for the first time, I can say I'm happy with an insurance company. Yesterday, 30 minutes after sending them the photos of them truck, they had deposited the money in my checking account and made arrangements with Enterprise for a rental car. I don't need it, so I canceled it. Today was like the others – down to Slough Creek to watch wolves and wait for pups – not today, then off looking for other things. Not much was found – mountain goats and a fox and a coyote. So, I did have a 3-dog day – wolf, fox and coyote. The fox was getting ready to pounce on something just off the edge of the road: It eventually didn't pounce and walked toward me: The mountain goats were perched way up high on a mountain: And the coyote was one I call tripod. I've seen it several times in the same area over several years. When it is near the road, it limps along on 3 legs, but away from the road it is fine on all 4. I think it has found that if i...
Thursday, May 11,2023 Disaster! I hit a deer with the truck on the way into the park today. I was going 60mph (below the speed limit) and the deer jumped right in front of me. In spite of braking as hard as I could, I hit it's back end with the front left corner of the truck. It took out the headlight, lots of plastic in the front, bent the quarter-panel and pushed the driver side door back a little. It s still drivable and the insurance company said I can wait until I get home to get it repaired. So I'm going to stay here until the 26 th . So, after cleaning out most of the broken parts, I continued into the park for wolf watching for a bit an then came back to get the computer and go into town to send the pictures to the insurance company.
Monday, May 8,2023 Today was chillier – around 30F when I got to the Slough Creek road at around 6:15 this morning. The road was still closed, so, again it was watching from 1 ½ miles away. Not much happened, just the usual moving around. So, I went bear hunting again. I had seen one briefly this morning and found 4 more as the afternoon wore on. Then, I went out the the Lamar River trailhead to make lunch and came across a group of pronghorn antelope near the road. I walked down the road a bit and got this photo: And, as I was coming back, I found that they had opened the road to Slough Creek Campground. Now we can get better views of the wolf dens from other angles and much closer.
Sunday, May 7,2023 Another chilly day with snow and rain in the morning. They still haven't opened the Slough Creek road, but a grader did show up this morning and start working on it. So, another day of trying to see the wolves from over a mile and a half away. There was some activity when the whole pack attacked the alpha female. It only lasted a minute or so and after it was over, the chief protagonist seemed to be friends with her, again. I've heard several explanations for what was going on, but I don't think anybody really knows. I'll ask Rick McIntyre the next time I see him. If anybody knows, he would. He's the world's foremost expert in wolf behavior, having watched them and taken notes daily since their reintroduction in 1995. In the meantime, I went bear hunting, again. I saw several grizzlies and this black bear very near the road,. This was taken as I drove past:
Saturday, May 6,2023 It was colder and still wet, just scattered snow squalls instead of rain showers. The colder weather calms the atmospheric turbulence, so that is a good thing. On warm and sunny days, the shimmering air causes havoc with focusing at high magnification and distances. Colder cloudy days are much better. In fact, I finally was able to get a bit of video of the wolves. This is several of them moving around between the 2 dens:
Friday, May 5,2023 The weather turned colder and wetter. It had been sunny and as warm as 75F in the afternoon in the park, today it barely got into the 50s with off and on rain. It was the usual stuff – out to Slough Creek for the wolves. They still haven't opened the road to the campground, so we are all crowded around on the main road. Still no puppies, I'm not expecting them to emerge from the dens until next week. I did spot several grizzlies, one close enough for decent video: But, sometimes, when you are taking a photo, all you get is bear butt:
Thursday, May 4,2023 I got up earlier today - 4:45 am and got to the spot where you can see the wolf dens around 5:45. Not much activity – just a bit of coming and going. I did see about 6 wolves. We also saw a grizzly bear from that same spot. Later, I saw several more grizzlies. 2 I almost hit with the truck. I was driving along just west of the Trout Lake trailhead when a mom and a 1-yea old cub came charging out of the sagebrush onto the road. I had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting them. They stayed on the road for a minute or so and I got a picture of them:
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 I got here yesterday just before noon and got camp set up. I'm in Carbella BLM site again, for the first half of the trip. Today, I got into the park about 7:30 – just too late to see much wolf activity. I did get some bears – in fact, I saw 7 grizzlies from one spot in the Lamar Valley! One down on the valley floor, a mom and 2 2-year old cubs on the far side of the valley and another mom with 2 cubs way up high, almost to the skyline. Here's a video of the bear on the valley floor: