I’m always happy (and a little relieved) to greet the burst of wildlife activity that heralds the imminent arrival of spring in Yellowstone.  Bluebirds and robins appear, the sandhill cranes return, and the first baby bison are born.  This year I spotted my first baby bison on April 10th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But my favorite end-of-winter ritual is the reemergence of the bears.  Typically in March someone spots the first grizzly of the year, often in a remote area of the park, and then in April the black bears join the party.  First out are the boars.  Sows with yearling cubs generally show up a little later, and sows with cubs-of-the-year (COY) a little later still.

This year, surprisingly, my first bear sighting was a black bear, not a grizzly.  On April 15th I ran across a cinnamon black bear sow with a yearling cub on a hillside near the Yellowstone Picnic area.

 

 

Just three days later I saw my first grizzly, a sow with two yearling cubs by Phantom Lake.  Their little family appeared frequently by the road for the next two weeks.

 

 

Soon bears began popping up all over.  One of the best places in the park to spot black bears is the area between Tower Junction and Tower Fall.  This year that 2.5 mile stretch of road didn’t open to cars until May 10th, which – in the weeks before it opened – made it my favorite hiking trail in Yellowstone.  More often than not I had the entire area to myself.  I saw my first bear there on April 26th, when Marie and I were riding our bikes back from Tower Fall and found a young black bear standing in the road.

 

 

From late April until May 10th I walked from Tower Junction up to the Calcite Springs overlook pretty much every morning.  I couldn’t believe how many black bears were sharing such a relatively small space.  Eventually I saw at least 12 different bears – two adult boars (both black), three sub-adults (one black, two cinnamon), a cinnamon mom with a yearling, a black-colored mom with two cubs-of-year, and a black-colored mom with one cub-of-the-year.

 

 

 

I fully understand that bears have all the tools required to make short work of a soft human like me, but none of the bears I encountered acted in a way that was even remotely aggressive.  I always carried bear spray, I maintained a respectful distance, and if my presence ever seemed to be altering a bear’s behavior I backed off immediately.

 

 

The cinnamon mom and her yearling cub were my favorites.  They were both perched in a head-scratchingly thin pine tree the first time I spotted them, high enough that if I hadn’t happened to look up I would have walked right under them without knowing.  On a different day I watched them forage in a field for a while before they were spooked by a passing group of elk, prompting the skittish cub to dart up a tree again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One afternoon in late April a fellow photographer walking the road alerted me to a black bear mom with two COY near the top of a large tree.  They were too far away for good photos, but it was really fun to watch the tiny cubs play-fight while balancing on a branch 100 feet above the ground.  I hoped to get a better look at them at some point but never saw them again.

 

 

Later a black bear mom with one COY began appearing somewhat regularly by the Calcite Springs overlook.  As the mom grazed, her cub would perform acrobatics in the nearby trees.  It’s amazing how skilled even the youngest black bears are at climbing trees.

 

 

 

 

 

Just when I’d been softened up by a stretch of relatively mild weather, Mother Nature lashed out with a spring snowstorm (as she seems to do at least once every May).  Over a foot of snow fell at our place in Silver Gate, but only an inch or two accumulated at lower elevations in the park – just enough to provide a wintery backdrop for the bears around Calcite.

 

 

All the bear activity didn’t completely overshadow my budding appreciation of Stage Three owl-watching.  The pygmy owls were tougher to find than they’d been in March, but they still appeared every now and then.  And at one point – thanks to an incredible spot by my photographer friend Jort – I had a chance to get a rare daytime photo of a boreal owl.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t sure if I should include these next photos, given that I took them on the property of a neighbor who puts food out for the local wildlife.  I happened to be driving by one morning when I noticed two pine martens in the trees by their house.  Given that the martens were being baited (even if the food was primarily intended for birds), some photographers would just steer clear.  But I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to take some shots, and it was good practice for future fully-natural pine marten sightings.

 

 

 

 

The opening of the road from Tower Junction to Tower Fall on May 10th marked the end of my blissfully peaceful bear time around Calcite.  The bears are still there, of course, but now when one appears it immediately draws a big crowd, which inevitably includes people who behave poorly, which of course makes the whole experience much less enjoyable.  I’m already looking forward to walking the road before it opens again next year.