Coyotes

One year we were here and a gathering was photographing a coyote, and one couple was British.  They kept talking about a koweyote and I kept thinking what in the world are they talking about.  I finally figured out that this was their pronunciation of what they thought the spelling would be.  So from now on, I refer to coyotes (kyoties) as koyots!!!!

They are probably the most fun animal to photograph, besides coy cubs. Coy is cub of the year, meaning it's a brand new cub.  A yearling is a cub that has been with the sow for a year and is in the second year with the sow.  At the end of the second year the sow will either kick the cub out or a boar will chase off the cub so he can mate with the sow.  Coys are great fun, but coyotes are always fun!

You can simply be driving along and suddenly you'll see a something running across the meadow or prairie and suddenly you stop and get the camera ready and it's like some publicity hound.  The coyote stops too and before you know it the coyote is almost modeling for you.  This is what makes them so much fun.

So catching her, she's thinking - ah-ha, I've finally got enough of an audience, I can pretend to be hunting.  

 So here she is hunting and she's very effective at it.......

Finally, she's bored like any paparazzi hound and sneaks off into the sage to hide from us

And she's right....only to the frustration of all us Yellowstone Paparazzi!

So I'm sure you noticed that we've been behind in blogging.  Not really my fault as Walt wanted to trek out to the very other end (eastern end) of YNP in the morning.

Now I'm not going to tell you that viewing Venus as the morning star with the background of the Absaroka Range isn't beautiful, but maybe I needed something more than herb tea to enjoy it.

It really did get better as the sun rose - although going through the entire Northern Tier in the pitch black dark (yep, we left the RV at 3 am - that's THREE IN THE MORNING!!!!  I had to get up at 2:30 am to make that 3 am call!)

So what was the purpose of this early morning call?  We had heard there was moose in the area but only at the crack of dawn!

Well, there was, but not where we had anticipated, but Walt always gets his moose!!!

And she was a skittish little thing.  Every car that went by and she would run, but came back to gets some of that delicious willow - yummy!!!

Then we turned around and went back towards Lamar Valley.  When I say this place never disappoints, every day we start out the same direction taking the same roads, and every day it's a whole new drama in Lamar Valley - it's always something!  This day we were hunting for the perfect bison portrait for Walt's son.  He has an abundance of wall space, like most male bachelors, and wants a bison to fill it.  It turns out that even though this is the Serengeti of North America, and there are literally tons of buffalo on the valley, it's hard to get just the right portrait of one.  Oh well, we'll try again tomorrow.

So we heard a rumor that there was an owl's nest not far and bounced down there to check it out.  This is Walt's first attempt, we made another later, but this is a catch-up post.  There are two chicks (owlets or whatever) in the nest but you can't see them here.  More on this later, because we got so rudely interrupted by.....

This is the beginning of a serious car jam which can only be caused by one thing.....BEAR JAM!  Bear jams are the daddy of all jams in YNP.  When you see a whole huge collection of cars and usually two rangers it means one thing - bears are near the road and get the camera and park the car as fast as you can, and that ain't easy in a bear jam.

This particular jam had two cute darling cubs  - OK, all cubs are cute, but the one you are photography right this second is the cutest one of all!

And lastly, we met another coyote...this one was seriously hunting.  So lest you think that we are suckers for these animals, here's the daily video - a really cute coyote hunting and getting his dinner!