Yellowstone…the Wildlife!

My favorite part of our trip to Yellowstone, by far, was the abundant wildlife we got to see.

First rule of Yellowstone in regards to wildlife. They are in charge. Not you. No animal makes this more clear inside the park than the bison. The bison does as he or she pleases. If it pleases a herd to walk down the middle of the street, well then who’s going to stop them?!

Ahh…teaching the next generation to rule the streets just as the adults do today.

 

There are so many bison in Yellowstone that we became completely disenchanted with them. Sad, but true. I have like 50 pictures of the first few herds of bison we saw and after that they had to do something really fun like hold a line of cars hostage for me to find them picture worthy. No wonder they take over roads….what’s a bison got to do to get his picture taken around here?!

Then there are these giant creatures- the elk. In this first picture you’re going to swear I’m making him up and have somehow digitally inserted him into the picture. You see, that’s why I had to find more elk just like him to take pictures of. I don’t want you to think I’m that talented with photoshop. I leave that to the rest of the Eckert clan.

I knew there had to be a girl elk around the park somewhere…and I found her!

While we’re talking BIG animals, lets talk about the bears. Toward the end of our trip we feared that we might make it out of the park without having seen a bear…and then we found both a black bear cub and three grizzly bears! It was pouring rain when we saw the black bear cub and he/she was on the move, so my picture is for proof of sighting purposes only…

Yeah, yeah, I know…it could be a black lab. But trust me, it’s not! The grizzly bears were more cooperative for picture taking…but they were REALLY far away. I mean, ultimately, that’s a very good thing. However, it posed a problem for our small cameras. There were people with telephoto lenses the size of ME out there so they could take great pictures of these bears.

As we close out our really big animal category, you may be wondering….what about moose?! Aren’t there supposed to be moose in Yellowstone? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Apparently, the moose population has declined inside the park in recent years and is down to about 200 total. This may not sound like a small population, but when you consider the size of Yellowstone (2221766 acres) it becomes a little clearer about why they may have been more difficult to find. I settled for this close encounter with a moose.

As a side note, when I put on that brown shirt that morning, Andrew said, “You know honey, you don’t look so pregnant in that shirt.” We agreed after looking at this picture together that he might have been wrong about that…

Then there’s the smaller creatures. First, the antelope. I mean, really. How cool is that?! An antelope.

And finally the smallest of creatures. I think they deserve a little fanfare. After all, can you imagine how hard it is to get some attention when there are elk and bears and bison and moose all around?! I love otters. When I go to a zoo, they are my favorite animals to watch. They just look like its fun to be them. I was determined to find an otter in Yellowstone…so determined, in fact, that I deemed all members of the family within the CIA mobile to be members of the elite OSU squad. That’d be Otter Spotting Unit, if you didn’t know…right. I know. You’re so glad you weren’t the one trapped in the car with me.

         

This weekend I’m in a friend/co-worker’s wedding followed by us heading off to the beach for the week. So here’s hoping that you have a wonderful week!