Winter Yellowstone…
A long wish has come true. For many years I wanted to visit Yellowstone in winter and this winter it was my turn to co-lead the trip with Danny Green. It didn’t disappoint me as I was blown away by its beauty and it felt I could easily spend a whole month exploring this place. Another great trip with Natures Images.
This ten day trip has given me a pretty good impression of how the real wilderness should look like. True…we drive on man-made roads, drive in man-made vehicles and sleep in man-made hotels but nonetheless it’s easy to forget these things when you stand next to a river or on a snowy hill looking into the distance. The herds of bison, the lone wolf and coyote seem to do the same. They seem to look straight through you and now and then they make eye contact for just a second to tell you, you shouldn’t be there.
Yellowstone national Park is the oldest national park in the world and was established in 1872 -an idea that spread worldwide.
During the flight to Bozeman Airport I was thinking of all the animals I was hoping to see and photograph. Of course the wolf and coyote but also the bison covered in snow and frost.
The bison turned out bigger than I thought. Really impressive animal which seems to deal with the cold very well. But they do struggle.. they feed on everything growing on the ground but they have to move the snow first and what they eat has the nutrition of cardboard. It just takes away the hunger feeling I guess. The energy that keeps them going comes mainly from their fat supplies. I bet they look forward to the spring….
Another animal who struggle’s in winter is the Elk or Wapiti. Bigger than our red deer but closely related to each other. They even imported wapiti to the Netherlands to breed with our red deer. Although its genetically possible it turned out unsuccessful.
During the winter the big horn sheep eats woody plants, such as willow, sage and rabbit brush. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were between 1.5 million to two million bighorn sheep in North America. Today, there are less than 70,000.
Sometimes labelled as carnivores but more often as omnivores, coyotes are opportunistic, versatile feeders and behave like the red fox. They are smaller than the wolf but certainly not less impressive up close. We had some great moments with the coyote and spotted them every single day. The close encounter we had at the beginning of the trip was simply magical. Making eye contact looking through the viewfinder was memorable.
A species I did not expect was the Bobcat. Very hard to see because of their camouflage and size. They are smaller than the European Lynx and sit still for a very long time when hunting for wildfowl or birds. We were very lucky to get some pictures.
Another lucky moment for the group was seeing this wolf feeding on a fresh kill. This elk was being consumed in a day or two by wolf, coyote, bald eagle and raven. Seeing a wild wolf from a close distance was impressive and memorable.
8 days driving around in Yellowstone park produced some great and unexpected images. Not only for me but for the whole group. The snow coach drivers John and Dave turned out very patient and professional. Us nature photographers can be very demanding at times and John and Dave seem to know that very well. They were great drivers and spotters. How they spotted that porcupine in that tree while driving will always be a mystery to me. Let me thank all the participants, John and Dave and of course all the animals in Yellowstone who have given us the opportunity to capture the beauty of winter.
If you want to join Natures Images to Yellowstone next year or the year after, please have a look at our WEBSITE
Edwin