A lot can change in a week.

When I left for The Lost Coast in early October, the leaves in Yellowstone were just hitting their peak fall colors.  A week later I returned home to find all the cottonwoods in Lamar Valley stripped bare.  And then one morning at the end of October those same cottonwoods were covered in a thick layer of hoarfrost.  According to my car the temperature was -5F.

 

 

Thankfully I was able to sneak in one more Great Gray Owl hike before all that arctic air rolled in.  Nick, a photographer friend who’s particularly good at finding owls, was generous enough to let me tag along with him once again, and this time Jill – our friend and neighbor – was able to join as well.  Jill had never seen a Great Gray Owl before, so I was really hoping we’d have good luck.

The three of us set out just before sunrise and spent a couple hours tromping around the frost-covered backcountry.  We saw a moose, but no owls.  I began to worry that we might strike out.  And then just ahead of us a dark shape dropped from the top of a small pine tree down to the grass – a Great Gray Owl striking at a rodent.  Jill’s first sighting!

 

 

This was an adult female, Nick told us, the mate of an owl we’d seen a while back with Jill’s husband Greg.  We watched her for the rest of the morning, took a break for lunch, and found her again in the afternoon.  Nick’s ability to spot Great Grays when they’re completely motionless and very well-camouflaged continues to amaze me.

 

 

 

 

At one point the owl coughed up a pellet, which Jill – a former science teacher – enthusiastically collected and examined.  Our friends Todd and Jort had joined us by then as well, and the five of us watched the Great Gray hunt as daylight faded away.  It was another unforgettable experience with a creature that often seems otherworldly.  Huge thanks to Nick for making it possible.

 

 

 

 

If you know where to look, it’s not unusual to see wolves along Yellowstone’s northern range.  Several packs occupy a relatively limited space, and they’re often active at dawn and dusk.  But the wolves generally avoid people and roads, which means that most sightings are far enough away that you need a spotting scope to get a good look.  And that’s for the best – we don’t want to habituate wolves to humans or interfere with their behavior.

If you drive though Lamar Valley every morning, however, you’re bound to have some close encounters.  In mid-October the Junction Butte pack was dispersed around Soda Butte, and as I watched from a pullout a lone black wolf trotted parallel to the road, behaving as if it wanted to cross.  There were quite a few cars around, but people eventually cleared enough space for the wolf to feel comfortable crossing.  The photos I took make the wolf look somewhat close, both to me and to the people parked (illegally) on the road, but I shot at 600mm and cropped the image below, making the wolf appear much nearer than it actually was.

 

 

 

Late October’s wintery weather triggered a spike in moose sightings.  Early on our first sub-zero morning I found a bull moose drinking from Warm Creek, a large dark silhouette against a landscape of new-fallen snow.  Foolishly I’d neglected to bring my warmest gloves, and my fingers went numb after only a half hour of taking photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marie flew to Florida at the start of November to visit her dad and stepmom, and a week later we met in Denver for an early Thanksgiving celebration with my family, which was really nice.  And then Marie’s son Aidan joined us back in Silver Gate for actual Thanksgiving.  Aidan has been in the Air Force for the better part of a year now, stationed at a base in Spokane, Washington, and this was his first vacation since he enlisted.  It was great to catch up.  We hiked to Trout Lake, ate a lot of amazing food, and spent time with a far-too-habituated fox that seemed very interested in the cooking smells coming from our cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from the polar plunge at the end of October, the early winter weather around here turned out to be surprisingly mild, without much snow.  I feel pretty confident in predicting that our luck will not hold out much longer.