Many Junction Butte Wolves and a Grizzly Bear

 

July 2, 2024: Morning

Our morning departure was a bit of a jumble but we managed to get to Slough at pretty much the same time as previous days. It was 42 degrees but no wind, so we were warmer. 

I dropped John off and headed for Dave's Hill, only to discover that my walkie talkie was dead. I headed back down to John below, much to his surprise. He and Debbie were set up and already had a few wolves. The clouds moved in for a bit, obscuring the sage den area, but eventually the sun came out and burned them off.

The excitement began early with 907F going down for a drink at 6:24. We had occasional sightings as the morning went on, but the most fun began at 9:00 when we saw five adults (three blacks and two grays, including 1479F and 907F) and the two puppies. Several wolves came out from the trees at once and headed down and to the left of the sage den. 

We had many first-time wolf watchers, young and old, that we shared our scopes with. John made an excellent video of the various sightings, and half the fun of it is listening to people's delight at seeing a wolf.

We saw the large brown-gray wolf again, learning from the wolf reports that he is actually a former Junction visiting from the Mollie's pack.

We noticed magpies in the pine trees for the first time today, and in watching the videos back at the cabin, it was quite apparent that they flew up from behind the trees whenever a wolf dashed back there, and they did indeed dash back in a motion we have seen before to scare off pesky scavengers. We believe they have a carcass behind the trees!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz5vTyvlO-w&t=30s

While talking to an Indian family, we somehow managed to miss the brown-gray wolf at 10:15. We tried in vain to find a wolf for them until 11:00, when we finally gave up. We went to Dorothy's to take a nap in the warm sun in the car, then headed back to Gardiner.

We had our usual iced latte and sat in the rocking chairs outside Yellowstone Forever at around 5:00 pm.

Evening

We chose Blacktail Ponds for our evening viewing and dinner site. It was only a 25-minute drive, and we didn't much care whether or not we saw any wildlife. Having finished our spaghetti, we used the binocs to looks around—saw a bald eagle being chased by a redwing blackbird and some geese. At about 7:00, I noticed the cars to the west near the next pullout were stopped in the road, which means only one thing: wildlife.

A large golden brown male grizzly crossed the road there and moved across the sage and then finally up the hill at a diagonal, disappearing into the forest. He was huge, nearly the size of a bison and rimmed in sunlight. About 20 minutes later, a woman stopped and pointed out two black bears, one brown (male) and one black (female). We watched them move up and along the hill beyond the ponds, running at times. The brown bear tried to mount the black bear (it is mating season After all), but she did not appreciate his attentions and they scuffled a bit.

Satisfied, we succumbed to fatigue at 8:00 and headed back to Gardiner.