Wednesday, January 28, 2015

More wolves – sort of.

As forecast, today was gray and wet. It wasn't cold, though. Almost all the way from Gardiner to the east end of the Lamar Valley was 33 degrees. The morning had snow off and on:

I got a late start and the first place I saw anybody was where we were watching the Junction Butte pack from yesterday. I talked to Lizzy, one of the Wolf Project researchers, and she said they were seeing the Lamar pack from the Confluence turnout. When I got there, it was full – no place to park my truck. The next turnout was also full, so I continued on thinking I would see them later. I stopped about a mile past all of that and tried to see the wolves from there, but had no luck. I did see 2 coyotes that were keeping a close eye on the wolves, though.

So, I moved further east and came across the moose I had seen yesterday. After parking past them, I walked back with the camera and tried to take some photos. But the snow started and the camera kept trying to focus on the snow instead of the moose. I did get a few, but the flat light doesn't make for a very good picture.

Most of the rest of the morning was spent hanging around waiting for a parking place to open. When it did, I climbed up a steep slope

and sat in the snow looking through the scope, just in time to see all 8 wolves bed down for their midday nap. It felt like I was sitting on a cliff face and nothing was going to happen, so I climbed back down and was able to see them from the bottom of the hill. OK, but they are still sleeping. Now, it became a game - where else could I see them from? So I and headed west to see what would turn up. I saw some folks up a small hill and joined them. You could see the sleeping wolves from there, but just barely. Back to the east, I put my snowshoes on and climbed a knoll, but the view was blocked by a small hill.

OK, enough of this it's lunchtime. After looking all over, I realized I left my lunch back in the motel room. Since not much else was going to happen for a while, I decided to call it a day.

The weather was starting to clear, however. Here are 2 pictures of the same area about 3 hours apart: