There are several things that we loved about our vacation to Yellowstone but I know that for all of us, the very best part was the animals.
We loved to spot them and then watch them.
But first before we get to the animals of Yellowstone please take a look at the latest animal that we have at our place:
It's mommy has been feeding in our pasture each evening and sticking close. We try to get glimpses of the baby whenever we can.
Way too cute!
Ok, now back to the animals of Yellowstone!
I don't think that any of us had a particular favorite - they were all pretty cool.
We loved the elk. They were everywhere and the babies were so darn cute! The coolest thing though was when they would "talk" to each other. I had always believed Mark's cow calling had to be fake but the elk really do sound like that - who knew?!
The big bulls were exciting to watch. Mark caused quite a traffic jam when he spotted 2 big bulls feeding up a draw. We stopped and got out to look and before we knew it, gobs of other people were stopping to look also!
We loved the bison. They were also everywhere! Including in our campground each night. You could spot a buffalo miles away. They were such a dark spot in the landscape that they were impossible to miss. They were still losing their winter coats and they were all shaggy-looking.
The cows and calves stayed together in fairly large herds but the big old males roamed around in smaller groups or were often just solitary as well.
Our favorite place to watch the bison was at our own campsite. Each day we had 1-4 big bulls in the campground or meadow. You had to have an eagle eye out just to use the bathroom. The boys and I saw one guy get charged because he wasn't paying attention to where the buffalo were and he walked right beside one. The buffalo didn't like him that close, that's for sure!
We loved seeing the bears of course and through our 7 days in the park we saw 11 different ones. More black bears than grizzlies but it didn't matter. They were cool no matter what kind of bear they were!
This mother had two cubs with her and we watched her for a while. Mark was in the middle of taking their picture when all of a sudden the cubs started running. The each went up a tree and then one cub came down and went up the tree it's sibling had clamored up. They went way higher than I would have thought they could and then there mother went right up after them. We watched for just a minute or two and then we figured out what had made them all go up the tree.
A big, black male came lumbering right by their tree. That mom must have gotten a whiff of his smell and told her kiddos to get to safety. I love how she climbed the tree after them so that the male bear would have to go through her first before he could try and hurt her cubs!
I never got a great shot of these two black bears (one was the mother and one was last year's cub we were told by a ranger) but we had a great spot to watch them from - the back of the truck! All of the people who climbed out of their cars to see the bars had to be scooted way back by the park rangers but since we were in the back of the pick-up, we were able to be fairly close. We watched these two bears for almost an hour. It's hard to drive away!
We also loved watching the...
antelope
and coyotes.
And just a few more pictures to torture you with...
The trip was wonderful in so many ways. I do wish we could have seen a wolf or two but we did sit on a buffalo carcass one evening to give it our best effort. No wolves showed up but we had the best time visiting with people and making new friends. No regrets and maybe we will see wolves the next time we go!
