Rocky Mountain Goats

Got some nice photos, yesterday and today, of Rocky Mountain Goats {Oreamnos americanus} in Snake River Canyon, only about 4-5 miles from where I live.

Elk Portraits

Spent some time, yesterday, at the elk feed-grounds just south of Alpine.  The elk are really starting to move onto the grounds now - we have quite a bit of snow.

Historically speaking, this is not normal behavior.  Before the arrival of the white-man, the elk would have kept to the wind-swept slopes during the winter - feeding on the grasses that grew during the summer.  When farming/ranching began, in Star Valley, the elk found the hay stacks to be much easier feeding.  In the 1930's, the Wyoming Game & Fish Department began actively feeding the elk through the winter season.

The feed-grounds are off-limits, to the public, from November 15th through April 30th.

Another Yellowstone Coyote - This one has dinner

Another coyote from last Saturday in YNP.  This one ran across the road right in front of me.  I had the big 150-500mm telephoto mounted - first shots the coyote almost over-filled the frame even at 150mm.

Yellowstone National Park

Yesterday, I spent almost the entire day in YNP - left home at 5:00A, didn't get back until 8:00P.  Saw geese, two coyotes, elk, beaucoup bison.

Two photos of the first coyote that I saw yesterday - this one was along the Yellowstone River, just north of the South Rim intersection.

Yellowstone Grizzly

While traveling back from Miles City, through Yellowstone National Park, I spotted two Grizzlies on the north side of Yellowstone Lake.  Both were quite busy diggin' up grubs &c. - made it difficult to get a good portrait shot.  This is best of the bunch.

 

Montana Squirrel

The week of October 25th I traveled to Miles City, MT to visit my sister and retrieve all my 'junque' that I have stored there since 2006.  Didn't do a lot of photography while there, but did manage to capture this squirrel portrait from her back yard.

 

Paper Wasps

Got these images at a friend's place this weekend - two different wasp nests in some out-buildings. Believe these to be [Polistes dominula]

Overview of one of the nests.

Portrait

Detail of compound eyes, simple eyes, mandibles

'Yeah, we bad'

Another Portrait

An intruder in the nest - 'Mama don't want no earwigs 'round here!'