Yellowstone Critter Sightings

 

There were traffic jams in Yellowstone National Park. It wasn't caused by bumper-to-bumper commuters on their way to a big city job. 

Instead, the traffic snarls were caused by wildlife sightings. On our first evening at Yellowstone, we could tell that something ahead was creating a traffic jam. From the Yellowstone guide handed out at the entrance: "Do not stop your vehicle in the road or stand in the roadway. Do not block any portion of the road with tripods, chairs or other objects. Do not block the free flow of traffic."

Let's just say there were plenty of rule breakers when wildlife was around. Thankfully, we found a parking spot and wandered down to see what the fuss was about.  (I'm a rule follower from way back. It's that firstborn child thing.)

In this case, the road block was caused by a mother elk and two babies, eating and drinking along the river. We had seen elk before, but we were just as enamored as the rest of the interlopers to watch the mama and two babies.

As I've mentioned, a bear sighting was on Randy's bucket list for this trip. (Click HERE for our first bear sighting. Don't get too excited. There's no photographic proof.)

 An NPS brochure said to "Enjoy them at a distance."

Well, that wasn't a problem. We kind-of-sort-of saw another bear in Yellowstone the next day. We saw people stopped along the road and asked what they were looking at. I could see a brown speck moving in the distance. Randy found the bear in his binoculars. My extreme nearsightedness doesn't mix well with binoculars, so I wasn't successful locating the brown bear, which was probably 200 yards away. 

Randy assures me there was a bear out there - somewhere.

During our trip, we also heard a loon - also a first - and saw some antelope in fields in Wyoming. We saw one big-horned sheep in Glacier, but, again, there is no photographic evidence to support the sighting. (I wasn't the only one on the Red Bus tour to miss the photo op. It was quick!)

There was no problem seeing the buffalo that dotted the Hayden Valley along the Yellowstone River.

 

 

Believe me, I know none of these photos is spectacular. But they were taken from the car window ... as we were moving. (See above for note about firstborn rule following.)

Earlier in the day, we'd found what seemed like a "hotel" for chipmunks at the Sheepeater Cliff. 

Though it was named by the Shoshone Indians for bighorn sheep, we saw the area's much smaller mammals.

Next time: More from Yellowstone