April Yellowstone Visit: Day 6

Just when the action was getting started, it was time for us to leave. We started the day at Pebble Creek to check to see if what we thought was the Lamars through the trees was still there. It was. We moved on to Slough Creek, where we patiently hunted the hillside for 969F. To John's excitement, he noticed two elk looking intently to their left. He panned left with the scope and there she was! She charged them, they charged back, and she charged again. The elk cow that had charged her went back to the other one, and she headed toward the dens.

I had a look through the scope and followed her to the sage den. She went inside, came out, shook, and went in again. She didn't come out again, or so I thought. While I was helping John find her with the camera, which doesn't have as much zoom as the scope, I looked through the camera view find for a couple of seconds, and in that time, she popped out and headed up the hill. We didn't discover this until we got home the next day when John viewed the video he was taking the entire time. Unaware of her escape, we sent word to Rick M. and then stayed to watch the sage den for over an hour until Gabriel and Daniel took over.

Video of 969F

Heading out of the park, we stopped where Jim and Bobbie had the Wapitis at Geode on a dying elk. Unfortunately, some tourists chased after them (which is not permitted) and the wolves disappeared out of site. Jim got some great pictures, and we just missed seeing them and their beautiful white alpha female.

We will return to the park for sure in February 2020, but we'd like to come back late summer or early fall, as well as Christmas.

April Yellowstone Trip: Days 3, 4 and 5

DAY 3

Tuesday, April 9: We stopped at Round Prairie to see if what I thought was a wolf on top of the slope really was in the better light. As I mentioned before, it wasn't but we discovered tracks leading up the slope. We scoped for a bit before deciding to move on to Slough Creek for a grizzly but none showed.

We drove all the way to Nature Trail to the west side of the park and took a nap in the car, warm from the sunshine. We woke to hear a person say "I've got a black wolf." We both snapped up and got out of the car, only to hear the person then say, "Nope, it's just a rock." He then introduced himself as Gabriel. The young man and his accompanying father were from Virginia, and it was their third time in the park, each visit about two years apart.

We stopped at several places to spot along the way back to Cooke City, including Curve pullout where there had a been a grizzly sighted on a carcass several times but didn't see anything exciting. After dinner, we went out again, trying our luck but didn't see any spotters or spot anything ourselves. We usually spent and hour or so each evening scoping at Round Prairie but we decided to skip it that night. When we read the day's report on Yellowstone Reports, we found that Gabriel and his dad saw the Lamar Canyon pack at Round Prairie. Of all the luck!

DAY 4

Wednesday, April 10: We drove to Nature Trail and as we arrived at the parking lot, we saw a young woman, Lizzy, get out of her vehicle with an antennae. She pointed it to the south and picked up the signal of one and then a second of the Eight-Mile pack. We also heard wolves howling behind us to the north. John talked to her about 1118F, and she reported that she is still around and has returned to her pack's area (the Mollies). I asked her about helping 1118F but she explained that they have a policy of not interfering unless a wolf is near the road and can't walk. She had to leave for a meeting, but we stayed to look for them.

John anticipated that the pack might try to cross the road west of Nature Trail to join up with the other two wolves, so we went to the next pull out on the hillside curves. I scoped the area to the south, and John scoped to the north and found them immediately. He was stunned to see two gray wolves staring right at them, and their head and shoulders filled the scope without it being zoomed in. I took a quick look, and as they were on the move up the hill toward Nature Trail, we climbed back in the car and found them at the northern edge of the nearest slope visible from the parking lot. They eventually disappeared over the hill, but we stayed to listen as they gave two long howls. John recorded it with the microphone and muff, but it didn't work (we later found out our particular cameras have an issue with the mic jack). The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and it was blowing and snowing hard, making visibility poor. I was so cold that I was shivering uncontrollably, but there was no way I was missing the wolves!

Once again, we went west and dropped into the valley at Blacktail Ponds for a better look. We found them, along with Gabriel and his dad, Daniel, on the hillside in the direction of Nature Trail, circling a small herd of bison. They seemed to have a snack from a carcass nearby, noticeable because of some ravens collecting on it, and then moved off out of sight.

Video of the Eight-Mile wolf pack
The camera shake is from the wind!

We eventually went home for dinner and then went back out to have a look for the Eight-Miles again at Blacktail Ponds and Nature Trail but didn't find any wolves. We also stopped at Slough Creek but didn't see anything. Meanwhile, Bill spotted a grizzly at Blacktail ponds shortly after we left. It's all about timing and luck, that's for sure. It also helps to be able to anticipate where the pack will go next based on previous sightings, which John has plotted on Google Earth. Besides that, having radio contact with the wolf watchers would also help so we could be notified of what is going on. We will seek permission to transmit on the wolf watcher frequency and also get a scanner for our next visit.

DAY 5

Thursday, April 11: We started at Round Prairie hoping to see the Lamar Canyon pack. We stayed there for about half an hour, met Bruce (Gabriel and Daniel's friend), and chatted briefly with Rick McIntyre who asked if we were on radio so we could let him know if we found them. We decided to follow Rick, who we noted had a tripod mount for his scope that attached over his window. It looked convenient for a quick scan instead of having to haul everything out of the car for a quick look.

Rick has found a comfortable way to scope! He went east to get a better view of the den opening.

 Rick stopped at Slough Creek, where there were already a few cars, one being Jeremy with some clients and another being Melba. Out on Bob's Knob, we heard the solitary howl of the pregnant 969F several times and had to quiet the others down. It was clear where she was howling from but no one spotted her. The others moved on, and then a new couple showed up. They showed me where the natal den and sage den are, and after about 20 minutes of scoping, they left, saying they would be "the sacrifice" (which means that once they leave the wolves will show). They didn't get but 30 yards away when I spotted 969F making her way up the steep rocky slope to the right of the natal den. We called the couple back and we all enjoyed watching her until she disappeared behind a slope above the den sight. Knowing Rick would ask me a lot of detailed questions about her, I studied her markings and how she moved. I noticed her feet and snout were very dark and it dawned on me that she had been digging, most likely in the den! Back at the parking lot, John shared the news with Bob and Nell, as well as Reve and Susan (who would be writing the Yellowstone report that night).

Wolf 969 F composite image: John stitched together many images of her as she made her way up from the trees (light dot above the bushes on the lower left), up the rocks to the snowline, to the right on the snow, then to the left and up. If click on the picture, you can enlarge it and zoom in; you'll see John has numbered all her locations.

We decided to head for the Mammoth Visitor Center to see if we could buy a wolf identification chart. They were out but the 2019 chart will be coming out soon and we can order it online. Ironically, I ran into a former colleague there who now lives in Bozeman but used to work at the high school where I teach!

Back in the park, we stopped at Round Prairie where Melba had sighted three of the Lamars. Rick  was also there. We kept our scope on them until 8:15 pm, waiting for them to move, (Melba gave up around 7:00) until it was too dark to see. Cold and hungry, we went back to Cooke City for a late dinner.

We were excited to see that we were mentioned on the wolf report late that night.

April Visit to Yellowstone National Park: Days 1 and 2

Learning more about watching wolves in Yellowstone and enjoying just watching them (instead of getting good pictures) are hallmarks of our April 2019 trip to Yellowstone.

DAY ONE

We arrived in the afternoon on Sunday, April 7 and on our drive through, we saw no one spotting and very few people in the park--and no wolves. We saw the usual two moose east of the Lamar Valley but that was all. Tired from the drive, we decided to head to our accommodations in Cooke City to unpack. 

DAY TWO

We slept in until 6:00 Monday (which is 5:00 to us since we're in the Pacific Time Zone) and headed out again. John dropped me off at Slough Creek and headed west to scope for the Junction Butte pack at a pullout east of Boulder. I was rewarded with the excitement of seeing a black grizzly bear on a bison carcass. I went to where another photographer was and set up my camera on the down slope of Bob's Knob. I approached as quietly as I could, having read in a previous wolf report that the grizzlies are quite sensitive. The bear did not seem to notice my presence, and I happily photographed him. 

A good sized black grizzly bear feeds on a bison carcass at Slough Creek at around 8:15 am. Prior to his meal, there were two brown grizzlies (their usual color) feeding that I missed. Only the male bears are out the second week of April, as the females with cubs are still in their dens.

Side note: I couldn't believe I was actually LOOKING FOR A GRIZZLY BEAR and walking toward it. Always, always carry bear spray in bear country, and practice spraying with an expired canister. It's not fair to the bears otherwise.

The photographer next to me retrieved an item from his pack and using the zipper caused the bear to look at us. Within seconds, he left the carcass and circled around toward the Secret Passage to the Lamar Valley. About the same time, a tour group showed up--loud and unaware--which destroyed any chance of the bear remaining in my view.

John and I had radios so we could talk to each other, and I had him pick me up. We drove west as far as Nature Trail (which was a location we wanted to confirm). Again, few people were in the park so we went back to Cooke City to take a nap and have dinner.

We went out after dinner to find Round Prairie, where we had read on Yellowstone Reports that there had been sightings of the Lamar Canyon wolf pack. It's always a challenge to locate the various place names mentioned in the reports, and this was a new one for us. We scoped at Footbridge, and then headed east to the next pull out. 

While there, a man (who we later realized was wolf watcher Bill) kindly stopped to tell us there were moose at Round Prairie. We had seen the moose on the drive west, so we excitedly drove back to where we knew the moose were and confirmed the exact location of Round Prairie east and west. We waited there until the darkness stole our vision as we scoped the treeline, around 8:15. I thought I saw something on the gentle snowy slope directly across from east Round Prairie pullout, but it was getting so dark, I couldn't be sure. The next morning in the bright light, we realized that what I thought I was seeing was a snowy patch in the trees; however, we also saw that there were tracks leading up the hill, just about the right size for wolves. While we scoped for wolves, we saw the two moose, of course, as well as the one of the resident foxes. He was mousing in the snow, and it was a delight to see him (or her).

The moose looked like they were laying down, but really they were walking either in or on the bank of Soda Butte Creek, so they were below the depth of the snow.

We've seen these two moose, who I think are a cow and her yearling, each time we've come to Yellowstone in the last four months.