Today on our morning walk we spotted the very first bear tracks on our usual loop. I found one single, front, grizzly track from a small bear in the drying mud of a puddle. The apple trees around the Blanding Station have begun to bear fruit, and considering the white bark pine crop is poor this [...]
Today had me leading a wildlife watching program in the Park for three lovely ladies. They had an interest in seeing wolves and so our destination was directed towards Hayden Valley. Wolf viewing in the lower valleys is difficult at this time of year as their prey - principly elk- have headed to the high country. [...]
Book review of “Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the battle to save the buffalo and the birth of the new West (Michael Punke, 2007, published by University of Nebraska press). This book was sent to me by a student and it is a detailed account of the slaughter of the North American bison as well as [...]
In the realm of national politics you, may know that Joe Biden was in the Park this week. I was leading a class down at Old Faithful when we ran into his entourage. Though I shied away from the plainclothes men with wires in their ears, but a few of the kids from our group did [...]
I had the most enjoyable time in the park today with some folks on a Yellowstone Association program. We met at Roosevelt Lodge then departed for Lamar Valley around 6:30 AM. Wolf viewing was slim to nil so we made a few stops to watch pronghorn antelope bison and a black bear along the south [...]
Just a last two days the Cottonwood trees surrounding our home and local environs of begin to shed their cottony seeds. The air is filled with what looks like July snow-every gust of wind brings with it a flurry of white fuzz. I left my truck window open during the day and the whole driver [...]
Today we conducted the seventh annual Yellowstone butterfly count! We had 23 participants but unfortunately the weather was not terribly butterfly-like. Although we did find one brand-new species not counted on the survey before-that being Arctic blue butterfly (picture below), most of what we saw were the usual suspects but in much reduced numbers. In [...]
It seems that I am the reluctant owner of my own swarm of bugs - Lord of the Flies of Gardiner? For whatever reason the studio door and that end of the garage has been completely overrun with flies for the past few weeks (not unlike the boar’s head in Mr. Golding’s novel)… And I can’t [...]
Rolling thunder awoke me this morning. I got out to the studio at my usual 5:30 AM. Instead of starting to work and turning on the radio, I stopped turned off the lights and watched the electric storm roll over the mountains from the park to the south. Rain and soon hail joined the mix [...]
After dropping the boy off at daycare I took the dogs for a short run in the Arch Park. From there we packed up and headed to Bozeman and the foundry. I had a few miniature sculptures that needed to be patinaed as well as needing to get some new sculptures quoted for molding and [...]
