Those eyes! The Great Gray Owl is a gorgeous critter with the most engaging, piercing eyes. The first goal is to find them, then get them in the viewfinder and then, then, select the best background. Wait, you don’t set up for the eyes? You want to see them big yellow peepers if you have a suckie background, so it has to be a priority. One must take a deep breath and not let the moment take hold of common sense. It’s a moment you want to forever cherish in your images and tell the story that engages the viewer. This is when a fast firing rate comes in handy as the owl scans left and right, up and down, using that huge facial disk to find its prey. In that process, you watch and fire as those eyes come down the lens barrel. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Its the fun and challenge of the stare of the Great Gray.

Yesterday was a gorgeous fall day in Yellowstone Nat’l Park! We had a marvelous day with some great encounters. We came across this bear jam yesterday afternoon. We were told by an onlooker that this is “Snow,” a 10 or 11-year-old griz. It is a “known” individual. There was a Bear Mngmt personnel on scene who was doing a marvelous job keeping the public safe and informing them of what they were seeing. I was surprised just how close he was letting the bear come to the crowd, who were for the most part, well-behaved.

In late fall, bears are on a mission. They want to get the last bit of fat they can stow away before hibernation. I call it panic time. Snow was in that process. It was obvious she wanted to go up the embankment where the folks were standing, cross the road and go up the hill to continue foraging. When she made that slight move to do so, she was scolded in no uncertain terms. It wasn’t her first encounter as she instantly changed her course. While she complied and the crowd all moved to keep up with her, she started to foam at the mouth. You can see a little in the photo above. That’s one of the first signs she’s not happy.

It’s just my opinion, but we are guests in Snow’s world. It is the public that should have been made to move so she can go about her life, eating to be prepared for hibernation. Yellowstone is not a zoo but a living laboratory, which we are a part of. It’s marvelous the public can see up close their wild heritage! There are times though I think we’re walking the line.

This gorgeous, majestic American Bison Bull had just one thing on its mind. Food! It was taking its time grazing the slope, following along an established game trail. When we first came up upon it, there was no photo. I could see the trail, I saw that there was better food beyond us so we just parked and waited. Sure enough, about forty-five minutes later it started to wander down the path seeing us in the pullout, sitting on the truck tailgate. I short time later it framed up the shot I had in mind, that nice headshot vertical. It knew what it was doing, he saw us.

Almost in the heart of Yellowstone, there was ‘cous! It was a delightful trio in fact, Bull, Cow & Calf. Not a family unit, but rather a cow with calf being haunted by a bull with making another calf on its mind. If they weren’t being pushed by over-eager (and ill-mannered guests) others, the family would have spent more time and we’d gotten to know them better. As it were, it was a delightful reunion as it had been well over a decade since I’d last had glass on ‘cous in The Park!

Kodiak Brown Bears like all bears, love their salmon. We tend to think of them standing at a fall catching the salmon fresh from the creek and eating only the finest sushi. Well, that does happen but more often, they go for the easy stuff. What’s the easy stuff? You can smell it a long ways away and I’m not talking about the bears. Not wanting to gross anybody out, but the bear was eating from a stagnant pool of about five hundred dead salmon that and been dead for days and days. It was rather disgusting! If it helps, it would pick through the putrid mound for the freshest, but that’s really not saying much. The thing is, all the bears visited that salmon pile, and they all pertaked! You’re simply lucky this is not a scratch-and-sniff blog post because looks are deceiving!

This is the look of a Kodiak Brown Bear deep in concentration. What’s he doing under the water with its paws, you ask? Mom taught him that this little bend in the river up against the rocks is where the salmon like to pool up and rest before rushing further up the river. The salmon are tired here and by simply waiting, they will swim right up into your paws. You simply extend your five-inch claws and you have a meal. Bears have just two things on their mind, getting fat and going back to sleep is at the top of the list. The more calories you take in with little effort, puts fat on. This big old male appears to have learned the lesson well, coming up to eight hundred pounds in five years. He’s real good at lounging in the water and pulling up sushi, it’s just his style.