Our ride through the refuge was covered in this post. Scattered throughout the herd were a large number of bull elk. At this time of year they are not competing for anything other than food so there was little tension between them. Instead, they seemed focused on feeding. However, they still had antlers so they made an imposing sight when they looked the right way.
Located in Jackson WY is the National Elk Refuge. This is a huge tract of land that has been set aside for the elk to winter in as other parts of their territory have been encroached upon. During the winter, thousands of elk make their way down from the higher ground and feed in the refuge. Elk are very skittish creatures and will not hang around if people are nearby. However, they are also not the sharpest of animals and, if a person is within something else, they don’t recognize that they are there.
Consequently, it is possible to take tour groups through the refuge on sleighs. These open sleighs are drawn by a pair of horses and carry about 20 people each. If you were to step out of the sleigh the elk would be off but, provided you stay inside, they don’t much care about you. They may look at you as you pass by but it doesn’t stop them munching.
The sleigh ride is a lot less comfortable than you might think. Despite the deep snow, things are very uneven and you lurch and bump along as you traverse the refuge. There was a large herd quite close by (no doubt courtesy of the food that is periodically laid out) and we were able to make a loop around the whole herd without disturbing any of them. We could have conversations at normal levels without a problem. Just don’t drop anything out of the sleigh. Getting out is forbidden.
I’ve not had a huge amount of luck looking for moose on previous trips. We saw two in our previous Yellowstone trip. When we went on our wildlife excursion in Jackson Hole, I was hoping to see some more. We didn’t have to wait long. We had barely left town when we saw a male munching away off the side of the road. A short way further up the trail and we found a mother and calf in the bushes feeding happily. They weren’t too bothered by us so we watched them for a while. A couple of people we met had actually seen one walking through a gas station forecourt in Jackson itself so I guess they are not that hard to find!
A sunny Sunday afternoon seems like a good time to go for a stroll. It was not supposed to be a wildlife photo trip. I did have the little M6 with me in my pocket, though, and, since the 55-200 is pretty small, I took that along too. I was rather glad I did too as, while walking along the river, we saw a family that were peering in to the river. There were ripples on the surface so we stopped to see what they had seen, Soon we could see the outline of a pair of otters swimming about. We watched for a short while and were about to move on when they swam down towards us and climbed out on to the bank.
One of them had caught a fish – a pretty big one in comparison to the otter itself. It started crunching noisily in to the meal while the other otter seemingly stood guard. They were on the bank for ages so we watched them for a while and then left them to enjoy their lunch. A short distance further along we came across a couple watching another otter so I guess this stretch of the Sammammish is pretty popular with otters!
I had finished up a shoot and was driving back towards home but decided to divert to Kenmore. The evening light was looking good and I thought some floatplanes might be returning to base. By the time I got to Kenmore, it must have too late as I didn’t see any planes. However, there was a cormorant sitting on one of the posts near the end of the jetty. As the sun set, he was stretching out his wings to gather maximum warmth. How could I resist yet another cormorant shot?
I had stopped off by Lake Washington to get some late afternoon photos and, as I walked back up to the parking lot, a couple of rabbits were snacking along the path. Since the camera was still out, I figured I would get some quick shots. Unfortunately, a family was following me up the trail and the kids spotted the rabbits. Being young kids, their instinct was to run to the rabbits – it won’t surprise you to know that the rabbits did not hang around to see if their intentions were good. I did get a couple of shots before they had vanished.
We stopped off for a spot of lunch during our trip to Fir Island. We had a recommendation in Edison that we took. As we headed back out after lunch, we were driving across some marshland when we saw some bald eagles. Pulling off the road, we watch them swooping across the marsh land. At one point they came right over where we were standing. An immature eagle was the one that came closest to us but we got a good look at several of them as they went looking for their lunch. Obviously they didn’t try the place we had been too!
As a celebration of a milestone birthday for m, we took a weekend in Jackson Hole. Part of the visit was a trip into Yellowstone on a snowcoach. There isn’t much in the way of wildlife in Yellowstone during the winter. The bears are hibernating and the moose and elk have all headed down to lower levels. Some bison have also headed down but other stay, attracted by the thawed areas around the hot springs. We saw a few of them working their way through snow covered grounds using their powerful necks to move snow away from the plants underneath.
It’s been a while since I had a cormorant post on this blog so time to have another one. This one is to showcase something I love about watching cormorants but that I hadn’t got good images of. When cormorants take off from the water they start flapping and running across the surface. They take quite a while to get up to a speed at which they can sustain flight. This trip across the surface usually is too far away to get a good shot of, even if you do spot them in time to get the camera on target.
However, if you are in a boat and the boat approaches the cormorant, you might spook it into taking off. They are pretty resilient creatures so may just float on by and ignore you but sometimes they will take off. Then, if you notice in time and the camera is to hand, you might get the takeoff sequence. They hop from wave crest to wave crest as they flap and accelerate and then they are flying. You can also lose a little weight before take off to improve performance!
On our day trip to Fir Island, one of the first birds we came across was a heron that was standing in the water near the parking lot catching lunch. I am guessing that the fish in these waters were pretty small because he seemed to catch a lot but always was after another. Must have been bite sized portions! With the water so calm, his reflection was very clear giving a nice emphasis to the shape of the body.
