Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

  • A Weekend Ramble in the Park

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    My wish is to stay always like this, living quietly in a corner of nature.

    ~Claude Monet

    Melissa was back home and the interior of the park opened last Friday so we opted to spend our weekend rambling about the park looking for signs of spring. An April snow storm added some fresh beauty to the landscape but the animals were out and about nevertheless. We spent Saturday in the interior where some of the roads have now opened after being closed since November. That trip included visiting some of the prime tourist attractions like Old faithful and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone without the usual summer crowds. Here are a few of our highlights…

    Melissa at our first stop in the interior (click photos to enlarge)

    Our first stop was along a trail we had hiked last year. This part of the park received several inches of snow in the storm from a few days prior so Melissa was hoping to do one last ski for the season. I had snowshoes in my pack as we headed down the trail but she soon found that the snow was wet and was sticking to her skis. It’s always a bad sign when a guy walking can keep up with someone cross country skiing:) So, we just hiked the rest of the way through the incredibly beautiful landscape.

    The Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone as seen from Artist’s Point

    Our next stop was the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, one of the most crowded places in the park in summer. A few cars were at each stop along the way making for a very enjoyable (and quiet) experience. I must admit, each time I visit this area, I am taken aback by its beauty and the sheer size of the canyon. I certainly see why it is so popular, but it was also nice to see it without the throngs of visitors.

    We walked the short trail down to the brink of the Upper Falls. This puts you right above where thousands of gallons of water per second drop 109 feet to the canyon floor before going downstream to the larger Lower Falls (308 feet high). Peak flow in spring can reach as high as 63,500 gallons per second though it is below that a bit right now. Still, you can feel the power of the water from these stations at the brinks of both falls. Here’s a short clip from the Upper Falls location. Videos are best viewed full screen with sound up.

    –The Yellowstone River flowing over the Upper Falls in the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

    Next on our visit was the other high visitation spot on the park – Old Faithful. Here we encountered the most people of anywhere on our weekend sojourn. But it was still only a fraction of the summer crowds when several thousand people gather for each eruption of this iconic geyser. Old Faithful was the first geyser given a name by early explorers in the 1870’s. It erupts about 20 times per day reaching heights of 130-140 feet and expelling a few thousand gallons of hot water with each eruption. One weird fact I read is that in the early days, visitors sometimes did their laundry in Old Faithful. They would throw it in between eruptions and it was cleaned and shot back out. Of course, getting near any of the thermal features is no longer allowed for visitor safety and the preservation of the thermal features.

    Old Faithful erupting

    On our way back home we stopped at Artists Paintpots, a thermal site that we had not visited for many years. A 1-mile loop trail takes you to the main feature, the paintpots, which are mudpots, one of the four types of thermal features found in the park (mudpots, hot springs, geysers, and fumaroles). I particularly love the mudpots because of the sounds and the weird bubbles that often break into fantastical shapes. I didn’t carry the big camera but got a short phone video to share.

    –The gurgling sounds and burping bubbles at Artists Paintpots

    After the hike we headed home. You never know what you might see while driving through Yellowstone, but when you see a bunch of cars pulled off the road and a gaggle of folks with cameras and spotting scopes, it pays to pull over (all the way off the road by the way and preferably in a pullout) and take a look. This was a good one – a grizzly! This was Melissa’s first grizzly of the season (I saw a couple while she was away) as they are just now coming out of hibernation. And this was one is a bruiser! A big male known as #970 but also nicknamed van Gogh because he is missing one ear (and truth be told, his other one doesn’t look too great). He had crossed the road moments before we arrived and was now just walking along parallel to the road digging and grazing. We watched him for about 30 minutes as he slowly moved in and out of some scattered trees and patches of snow giving the assembled crowd quite a show.

    The grizzly some call van Gogh, digging and grazing along the road.

    We shared our scope with many people who had never seen a grizzly and that is always a treat for us. Melissa also took some video clips with her phone on the scope. It was getting late but the videos do show how massive this bear is.

    –The huge grizzly we saw on our trip to the interior of the park last weekend

    One one video has the bear digging through the soil and it looks to me like he ate an earthworm. That isn’t much of a meal for such a big bruin but I guess if you are doing that for hours a day it all adds up.

    –The huge grizzly digging for dinner. See if you can see what I think is a worm he ate.

    That was a great way to end our first trip to the interior. The next morning we headed out onto the northern range looking for wildlife. Our top priority was to see one of the season’s first baby bison. There have been reports of a few being born already although most will come into the world in few weeks. As we approached Tower Junction some bison came into the road and leading the way was a cow with a tiny baby. We stopped, of course, and they ended up walking right by our car. That baby was sooooo cute and was probably born that morning.

    Our first sighting of a baby bison this season and mom walked it right by us for a good look

    We saw two more newborns that day so it was a successful outing. We also saw another grizzly out in Round Prairie late in the day. This one was a sub-adult we believe and seemed a bit antsy out there in the big world all by itself. We watched for quite some time as it walked along the tree line, stopping occasionally to dig or scratch itself on a tree trunk. Every now and then something seemed to spook it and it would run a short distance before looking back and resuming a slow steady pace.

    –This distinctive dark grizzly has a light-colored collar of fur.

    During the day we did a couple of the hikes I had done while she was away and enjoyed the scenery and quiet away from the roads. Plus, we took our time and looked at some of the wildflowers just starting to bloom and the many insects out and about right now. All of those things may be impacted a bit by our next weather system later this week which promises some more snow! You gotta love this place!

  • It Must Be Spring (?)

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    Spring is when you feel like whistling ebven with a shoe full of slush.

    ~Doug Larson

    Melissa was gone for a couple of weeks back East so I spent most of my time out in the park where I experienced the onset of spring. Spring in Montana is not quite like we had back in North Carolina with the fresh green leaf-out of trees, the blooming of redbuds and spring ephemerals, and the dawn chorus of so many returning birds. Here, you look for things like the first grizzlies and black bears, the first bison calves in Lamar Valley, the call of a sandhill crane, and night-time temperatures consistently above freezing. It has been an unusually warm winter so our spring may have come a bit early but winter likes to hang on. Just when I thought it was over we have a winter storm warning in effect right now and did get a steady snow this morning.

    The view from the house this morning. Normally you see the mountains in the park but this morning was just a white blanket in the sky (click photos to enlarge)

    But last week I did see plenty of signs of spring trying to make a break-through. I reported on my first grizzly in a previous post. I now have my first black bear sightings of both a black one and a cinnamon one. Looking at the huge cinnamon-colored black bear, you can understand how many visitors wrongly identify one as a grizzly.

    My first black bear sighting was a big boy
    A large cinnamon black bear a few days later in almost the same location
    My first wildflowers of the season are the abundant sagebrush buttercups
    A couple of days later I spotted the opening buds of Mahonia (Oregon grape)

    And with the flowers come the first pollinators…

    A common syrphid fly, the white-bowed smoothwing, approaching a willow bloom
    I was delighted to see a new species of butterfly (for me anyway), the beautiful Sheridan’s hairstreak. These diminutive green flyers are very abundant in the sagebrush flats on the northern range.

    Of course, many of the earliest butterflies (like commas and mourning cloaks) have overwintered as adults and they were the first species we found on our walks.

    A green comma landed on Melissa much to her delight

    Many of the ungulates are changing attire as spring approaches. Male members of the deer family shed their antlers annually. Moose started shedding in January. Elk and deer were hanging on to theirs a bit later.

    I saw my last bull elk with large antlers a little over two weeks ago. On a hike last week I found this recently shed antler.
    I am now seeing bull elk starting to grow their new set of antlers. It is amazing how fast this turns into a huge rack.
    Now when I walk through the sagebrush flats I hear the warning chirps of the Uinta ground squirrels. They have been underground since last August and are a welcome sight for not just me, but for most of the predators in the park, as these super-abundant rodents seem to be the basis of the food chain for anything that eats meat.

    Yellowstone is home to five native species of amphibians including a salamander, two toads, and two species of frogs. That’s a bit different from the 14 species of amphibians we had just on our property in North Carolina. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard my first frog calls of this spring (some boreal chorus frogs) and found my first ever amphibian egg masses in Yellowstone (of Columbia spotted frogs) while on a hike last week.

    Egg masses of Columbia spotted frogs in a shallow lake

    And like many places, the arrival of spring birds is one of the true signs of seasonal change. Over the last couple of weeks I have seen the return of the gorgeous mountain bluebirds, sandhill cranes, violet-green swallows, red-tailed hawks, and red-winged blackbirds. Back in North Carolina I am seeing reports of returning warblers and ruby-throated hummingbirds and so much more. I think it may be a slower process here and certainly with fewer warbler species. But it is a much-anticipated series of events nonetheless.

    The mountain bluebirds are stunning in the awakening landscape
    Male red-winged blackbirds are setting up territories along the edges of wetlands and filling the air with their conk-la-ree calls.
    Red-tailed hawks have returned and are busy setting up territories and acquiring nest sites

    Much of the wildlife in the park is busy preparing to nest or give birth or already has new young. It is a fascinating time to watch and listen as the age-old rituals of a spring unfold. I spent some time watching a male northern flicker (they have red feathers here as opposed to the yellow-shafted feathers of those back in North Carolina) trying to set up a territory in an aspen grove. He spent a lot of time each morning calling and drumming. Unfortunately for my neighbor, one also tried drilling a nest cavity on the outside walls of her house but I think has finally been persuaded to look for a more natural home. Best viewed full screen and with sound up.

    –A male northern flicker giving it his best shot to attract a mate

    One of my highlights for the past two weeks was the return of the ospreys to their nests all along the Yellowstone and Lamar Rivers. Of course, after a winter of no one to tidy up the place, the old nest usually needs some sprucing up. I spent several hours watching a pair of ospreys adding just the right sticks to their nest along the Lamar River. I shot some slow motion video of their tireless efforts to get the nest ready for the spring. I confess that it is harder to track a flying bird than I had thought as you will see in these clips. Best viewed full screen.

    –An osprey flies into a dead branch to break off a twig before returning to the nest to make things just right for the new season.

    The male osprey must have some grand ideas for this large branch…perhaps a room addition?

    In spite of today’s snow, spring will not be denied and new life will continue to burst forth here in Yellowstone. We will try to keep you posted on the exciting developments.

  • A Birdy Year

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

    ~Sir David Attenborough

    My last post on the migrating birds of central Montana reminded me that we have enjoyed seeing a number of birds in our first year (almost year) in our new home. I have included many in previous blog posts about waxwings, mergansers, hummingbirds, and a great gray owl. We have seen some of the first arrivals in the park of “our summer birds” these past couple of weeks (mountain bluebirds, sandhill cranes, red-tailed hawks, violet-green swallws) so I thought I would go ahead and share some of my favorite bird sightings. Plus, I want to give birds their due since it seems that some park visitors are only enamored with the charismatic megafauna that have fur. It has happened several times while watching birds through a scope that someone will pull up and ask what we are looking at. If it is a bird, some usually smile and drive on. We have even flapped our hands like wings as someone pulls up and that often sends them driving on without even asking (or I suppose they could think we are a bit wacko).

    Anyway, we always stop and take a look when we see a bird out in the park. We have been particularly vigilant this winter as we searched for the elusive pygmy owl. Melissa spotted two this winter but I was skunked. We have looked at every small bird and quite a few pine cones or tufts of needles at the tops of trees in hopes of seeing this tiny diurnal predator. What we did see were a lot of Townsend’s solitaires who also like to perch on the tops of trees. They sing all winter as they defend their winter food supply of juniper berries (in summer, they are primarily insect eaters). The Cornell Lab’s All About Birds page cites a study saying a single Townsend’s solitaire may eat between 42,000 and 84,000 juniper berries in order to survive the winter!

    A Townsend’s solitaire hanging out in a juniper tree (click photos to enlarge)

    Below are some of the other birds we observed since arriving here. Many were absent through much of the winter but are starting to reappear now that spring is approaching (although snow is in the forecast this week!).

    Mountain bluebirds have returned to add a brilliant flash of color to the landscape
    A young robin last summer thinking about eating some more of our pie cherries before we can pick them
    A cedar waxwing gobbling some berries in the yard late last summer
    A white-crowned sparrow preparing to feed its nestlings up in the Beartooths last summer
    Lots of grasshoppers being fed to nestlings last summer – this is a yellow-headed blackbird with a beak full
    This male yellow-headed blackbird gave me a double splash of color as it flew across a pond
    A juvenile spotted sandpiper on a lake shore in the Beartooths last August
    This male horned lark had been singing on this rock when I drove up and interrupted
    One of four ruffed grouse finding something to eat high up in the aspens in our favorite grove of these beautiful trees
    A trumpeter swan dozing with one eye open

    Some of the birds we watched the most were those that stay here all winter – the eagles, ravens, magpies, dippers, and nutcrackers kept us company on days when other wildlife was a little tougher to find.

    American dippers can be found on most any open water in winter, dancing on the rocks and diving into the frigid waters to find some aquatic insects to eat.
    My, what big feet you have!
    We have two species of chickadees here – the black-capped (which looks a lot like the Carolina chickadees we are used to) and this mountain chickadee sporting a stripe through its eye
    Clark’s nutcrackers are large birds sporting a stout bill they use to extract the “nuts” from pine cones, especially whitebark pines. When Lewis and Clark first saw this bird, they thought it was a type of woodpecker, but it is actually a member of the Corvid family like ravens and crows. Nutcrackers have a special pouch under their tongue where they can place many seeds at a time as they fly off and cache them for later consumption.

    In years like this with poor whitebark pine nut crops, nutcrackers rely heavily on other conifers like Douglas fir. Here is a short clip of one gathering seeds. Sound up so you can hear the harsh squawk of a nutcracker near the beginning of the clip. There were 6 nutcrackers working this group of trees that day.

    –Nutcrackers are quite adept at using their sharp bill to gather conifer seeds from cones

    The bold pattern of a black-billed magpie stands out against a frozen shoreline of the Lamar River
    I watched several magpies on this cold day in February as they picked at tiny objects on the ice. I finally figured out they were eating some sort of tiny flying insect that probably had emerged from the river and were getting blown onto the ice.
    In addition to scavenging at carcasses of various ungulates, we often see magpies on the backs of live ones as they pick off insects and parasites from the obliging host
    A golden eagle takes flight and reveals its backpack transmitter antenna. There is a long-standing research project in the park looking at golden eagle movements and habitat needs.
    Bald eagles are commonly seen in winter as they scavenge carcasses. This pair had just flown up off a gut pile from a hunter-killed elk just outside the park boundary.

    –A bald eagle flew into a bison carcass that was feeding a group of ravens. It is amazing how they calmly share the prize. But I did witness a raven tugging at the tail feathers of a juvenile bald eagle several feet away from the carcass.

    –The juvenile bald eagle finally had enough and took off with a raven in hot pursuit (slow motion video). Notice how it tries to gain the advantage by getting above the eagle.

    This last clip is of a group of ravens at the bison carcass (this is one of the bison that drowned this winter at Blacktail Ponds). One thing I noticed is a couple of pairs of ravens on the outside of the main group are giving soft calls and interacting with each other in what seems like an affectionate way. You can also see what look like small horns on the head of some of these ravens. These plumicorns (feather horns) can be raised and lowered and probably have a variety of meanings from aggression and dominance to affection between mated pairs. I think that is what is happening here, some affectionate bill touching as a pair bonding signal.

    –Look for the interactions between a couple of the pairs of ravens that may be part of their pair bonding rituals

    I’m becoming more and more fascinated by the ravens. They are very intelligent birds with lots of vocalizations that we are still trying to decipher. Whenever we see more than two ravens heading in a direction we wonder if there might be a carcass somewhere. There is a lot of speculation as well as some data about the relationship between ravens and carnivores like wolves. Do ravens lead wolves to prey? I certainly have seen a few ravens just hanging around wolves that were not on a kill site, so at the very least ravens may follow predators in order to take advantage of any kills.

    This beautiful raven boldly hopped up on the hood of our car while we were waiting at a carcass just off a pullout that had a grizzly on it. No doubt the raven had been fed by someone in the past so it was letting us know it was available if we we wanted to give it a handout (we did not). But it was a great opportunity to closely view their amazing head and neck feathers.

    As spring tries to make an appearance in Yellowstone, we are looking forward to seeing more of our feathered friends (and perhaps some new ones) in the coming months.

  • First Grizzly!

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    Most animals show themselves sparingly. The grizzly bear is six to eight hundred pounds of smugness. It has no need to hide. If it were a person, it would laugh loudly in quiet restaurants, boastfully wear the wrong clothes for special occasions, and probably play hockey.

    ~Craig Childs

    People have reported seeing grizzlies coming out of hibernation the past few weeks. I kept looking in the usual spots each time I went into the park – along the treeline in Lamar Valley, high up on the meadows above the valley floor, near carcasses, but no luck until last evening. It was cold and windy and had snowed overnight into the morning so I wasn’t planning on going into the park. But then the sun poked through the clouds mid-afternoon so I loaded up the gear and headed out. A few hundred elk greeted me near the park entrance along with a nice herd of pronghorn. Bison were abundant in many spots and there were the most pronghorn out in Lamar Valley I have seen this spring. A flock of about 20 mountain bluebirds flew over the road, some hovering in the wind before dropping to the ground (I have never seen a flock that large). A couple of coyotes were hunting through the sagebrush reminding me how difficult it can be to spot them now that the snow is mostly gone. So, a typical afternoon in the park but nothing extraordinary. And then I came around a curve and saw a dozen vehicles pulled off the road along with a ranger’s car. I figured it must be a bear.

    My first grizzly of the season and it is a beauty (click photo to enlarge)

    Indeed it was – a nice grizzly. It is probably the one I have heard described as the “Junction Butte bear” since it has been seen digging and turning over rocks on the slopes of nearby Junction Butte. The bear was below the butte and fairly close to the road near the new bridge. The park ranger was there to make sure everyone behaved and I am happy to say everyone was respectful and gave the bear plenty of space.

    They say this is a five year old female grizzly. Grizzly females typically have their first litter of young between the ages of 4 to 6. They may have 1 to 4 (rarely) young every 2 to 3 years after that until they are in their 20’s. If she stays in the area through the mating season we may see large boar grizzles following her around hoping for a chance to mate.

    A small group of us watched her as she grazed on grasses and other vegetation. She has been seen in this area for about a week and is probably very hungry after spending a few months hibernating. She wandered a little closer so I put up the camera and headed to the car. I turned and looked and she started to head back up slope toward Junction Butte for the night. Here’s hoping she has a peaceful summer and continues to provide joy to visitors wanting to see a Yellowstone grizzly.

    Here’s a short clip showing her ambling towards us as she grazed. Images were taken with a telephoto lens and cropped. Be sure to view full screen.

    –My first grizzly of the season. Check out those claws!

  • Duck, Duck, Goose

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    Poetry is a sky dark with a wild-duck migration.

    ~Carl Sandburg

    In her last post, Melissa eloquently described the first evening of our trip to Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area to view migrating waterfowl. This post will give an overview of our 4-day trip to central Montana to hopefully satisfy our need to see migrating waterfowl, one of our favorite winter pastimes back in North Carolina. While we are lucky to live next to Yellowstone and have access to viewing amazing wildlife, we both miss the waterfowl spectacles we were able to experience every winter at places like Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina. I had read that the snow geese migration at Freezout Lake can be a similar spectacle so we planned a trip. Before you send me a note about the misspelling of Freezout (I initially added that extra “e” as well), we learned that is an historical proper name derived from a nickname for a place called Freezout Flats in the late 1800’s instead of a direct description using the word freeze. Anyway, it is about a 4 1/2 hour drive from our home into the western edge of the Great Plains in Montana. For our stay, we rented a cool house that is a converted grain silo in a pastoral setting.

    Our home for 3 nights while chasing birds (click photos to enlarge)
    Pastoral view from the living room

    Melissa described our first afternoon at Freezout in her post. We decided to drive back at dawn the next morning and were glad we did. There was a small gathering of humans (big and little) to witness the morning blast off of thousands of snow geese. Turn your volume up and listen (you can also hear the excited voices of the watching humans).

    Lift off of thousands of snow geese at dawn

    The show was over in just a few minutes as the birds went off to unknown fields to feed or perhaps to continue their northward journey. Unlike our winter spectacle of waterfowl in North Carolina where the birds arrive in November and stay through February, this is a momentary stop on their way to their breeding grounds. But one thing this area has that is very helpful is a migration dashboard – a daily update on the numbers of certain species of birds so people hoping to see the huge numbers can plan their visit. I wish all refuges had this feature. Check out the crazy variability in numbers on the daily charts. This year’s peak was a few days earlier than normal so we missed it but still had a nice viewing.

    We decided to drive the loop road around the lake to see what else we could find. There was a large exposed mud bank due to the low water levels and at first we thought the lumps along the shore were rocks but Melissa figured out they were large numbers of dead fish. And with that, there were lots of eagles scavenging. There was a large hill paralleling the lake shore on the other side of the road and we soon counted 8 bald eagles (mostly juveniles) playing along the updrafts. They swirled and changed course like the expert aviators they are and played games of chase and chicken as we watched.

    Two juvenile eagles chasing each other in the strong winds
    Talons outstretched as two eagles move in on one another

    One particularly long game involved chasing an eagle that had a chunk of something (fish?) in its beak. At one point Melissa saw it drop its prize and a pursuing eagle snatched it in its talons and then transferred it to its beak while flying.

    Playing a game of chase for the prize in one eagle’s beak

    After some satisfying eagle watching we headed to another waterfowl hot spot, Benton Lake National Wildlife Refuge, about an hour’ drive away. Of course, first we made a much needed pit stop out in the wilds of Freezout Lake. You know you are in the true wilds of the West when the pit toilet door has this warning…

    Do they mean inside or out?

    When we arrived at Benton Lake, we discovered the bird of the day along the roads was the horned lark. They were everywhere and flushed off the gravel road as we drove.

    A male horned lark puffing his feathers

    We spotted a couple of sandhill cranes near one of the ponds and spent some time enjoying them in the late day sun (it reminded us that we may need to revisit Nebraska in a future year to see that migration spectacle again).

    The unusual bulge of rump feathers (called a bustle) on these cranes is used for display during courtship and territorial issues. Though they look like tail feathers, they are actually specialized wing feathers.
    The eye of a crane in low angle light is a beautiful thing

    Though windy that afternoon, we saw enough waterfowl to convince us to go back to Benton Lake NWR the next morning at sunrise. It was again windy but that may have helped a bit in my attempts at catching birds in flight as they headed into the wind.

    Three elegant Northern pintails zooming past us (two males, with extended tail plumes, and one female)
    A small flock of scaup in the early morning sky
    This shot shows the lay of the land at Benton Lake as well as one of the terrestrial predators, a lone coyote (photo by Melissa Dowland)

    The duck of the day was definitely the common goldeneye. First of all, they are gorgeous, especially with low angle sunlight highlighting the male’s iridescent head feathers.

    A drake common goldeneye displaying his beautiful feather colors and patterns
    A male (bottom) and female common goldeneye in flight

    The other wonderful thing about these ducks is their breeding behavior and we had the good fortune of being there when the male’s were showing off their head-bobbing skills. They perform several distinct courtship rituals including the backwards head throw, head pumping, and kicking the water with their feet. Here’s a slow motion video of some of this displaying. It was common to see a group of males closely following a single female all the while doing their best to convince her they had the “right stuff” for her

    Common goldeneye males trying to impress that one female in the group

    Of course, there were a lot of other waterfowl species at the refuge including American widgeon, Northern shoveler, mallard, gadwall, green-winged teal, canvasback, redhead, bufflehead, the aforementioned Northern pintail, American coot, some snow geese, and a few tundra swan.

    A couple of male American widgeon. The one on the right doesn’t seem too pleased with the other’s arrival.
    Redhead drakes are gorgeous ducks.
    A pair of mallards cruising into the pond.
    Another group of Northern pintails over the marsh

    We sat for a long time in the car alongside the waterfowl, hoping they would come closer. Most did not, so these images were shot with my 200-800 zoom lens and are heavily cropped. One bird did fly nearby on several occasions but was tough to photograph as it blasted by each time – a killdeer. I finally managed several shots of it passing by calling and giving us the side eye.

    Killdeer just outside the car window.

    Driving the long, flat dirt roads (at 50 mph by the way) in central Montana also yielded some cool birds that have been introduced for hunting in this area. We saw several ring-necked pheasants (including this gorgeous male) and what we think were some gray partridge.

    A male pheasant deciding it is better to run than stay

    All in all, a great trip to a part of the state we did not know much about. I can see us returning to the region next winter for another “bird fix”.

  • Old Friends, New Home

    Posted by

    Melissa Dowland

    Mike and I are sitting in our camping chairs on a mat of cattails, trampled down by the feet that came before ours as they approached the shore of Freezout Lake. The smell of the mudflat lingers in the air when the breeze dies, triggering memories of eastern salt marshes, which is ironic, given that we’re sitting at the western edge of the Great Plains in Central Montana. The low angle sunlight lays on the broad, broken cattail leaves, painting them a more golden hue than they would otherwise appear. They make a whispered rattle as they are shaken by the wind off the distant Rocky Mountain Front.

    As I gaze through my spotting scope, I name the waterfowl. Northern shoveler. American wigeon. Common goldeneye. White pelican. Its brilliant white is eye-catching. I watch it preen with its comically long bill. I can see the details of individual feathers, a contrast of light and shadow. The vivid colors of its skin are a surprise. It reminds me of a tropical cocktail. Its dark eye is decorated with yellow and orange eye shadow. The top of its bill is the least vibrant — a dusty orange. Its mouth gapes red. The bill edge is lined with baby pink. But the most shocking is the canary yellow of its pouch that darkens to sunset orange at its chin. Below, magenta legs disappear in the dark water.

    Northern pintail — note the white chinstrap. Mallard — that green head shimmers in the light. Gadwall — a subtle duck with a noteworthy black butt. Redhead and canvasback — russet heads, one with a yellow eye, one with red. These ducks seem like old friends to me. I remember when I was learning them at Lake Mattamuskeet in North Carolina. Mike would call out the “white wedge” on the side of the ring-necked duck, the fast wing-flap of the green-winged teal. I’m not sure when my eyes finally learned all those notes, but today may be the most confident I’ve ever been that I am seeing exactly those features, that I recognize each one. The excellent light doesn’t hurt.

    I’m startled from my reverie as the snow geese lift, three thousand black and white bodies circling the sky. The volume of their endless calls cycles with the movement of the flock. I spot the dark silhouette of the eagle that spooked them off the water as they sink down again, one by one: wings set, feet out, dropping onto the water. I scan the flock with the scope, picking out one, then two of the miniature Ross’s geese. The snow geese are bug-eyed and smiling. The Ross’s geese look a little pissed off… do they resent their smaller stature?

    My fingers have chilled as the shadows of the cattails fall on my book, as I rush to scribble some closing thoughts. Car tires rumble on the gravel and wind turbines circle on the horizon. The light turns even more impossibly golden as I linger for a final moment.

    Sunset behind the Rocky Mountain Front

  • Update on Scavenger’s Delight

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals… They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.

    ~Henry Beston

    I went back to the Blacktail Ponds area yesterday to see if there had been any changes at the bison carcass. As I approached I saw several cars pulled over in a pullout a 1/4 mile or so prior to the one adjacent to the floating bison carcass. I thought that perhaps a grizzly was now in the area, but when I stopped I was told there was a lone black wolf out in the flats. I quickly saw it and got out the scope and camera. As I got things set up the wolf let out a long howl, a great way to start your morning for sure. This was a real treat as wolves have been scarce the latter part of this winter (at least wolves that aren’t specks at great distances). For the next 45 minutes I watched this wolf as it made its way east through the ponds area (without any interest in the carcass) and over a distant hill. I managed to stay just ahead of it by driving to different pullouts and waiting for it to appear. The wolf seemed to be paralleling the road but at a distance until it finally disappeared into a drainage that could take it away from the road into the far hills. Along the way, it stopped and howled two more times, perhaps trying to connect with its pack mates. I could not hear a response but maybe it did as it kept on a pretty direct eastward path at a decent trot.

    –The black wolf trotting off, perhaps to find its pack mates

    Along the way, the wolf passed by a small group of bison. They eyed the lone wolf, no doubt confident they could take this loner, but still had their tails arched as a sign of concern/anger that a lone predator would dare come so close.

    The bison telling the lone wolf to think better of it

    Since the wolf had taken me beyond the carcass pullout (there were no scavengers on it as I drove past) I headed to another bison carcass at the far end of Lamar Valley. This one was close to the road but you had to park some distance from it and look back (park staff put up closure signs near a carcass so people don’t interfere with scavengers and to reduce potential conflicts with bears). There were a few ravens and magpies but nothing else. On a second trip later in the day there was a coyote feeding on the carcass but I didn’t stay to watch. Going back toward the Blacktail Ponds I came across yet another bison carcass with an eagle feeding on it. This was was in good view of the road so I stayed awhile, chatting with some international visitors, but nothing returned after the eagle departed. So, off I went to sit for a bit with the floating bison carcass in hopes of seeing a bear or some other scavengers.

    Once I got to the carcass site I could now clearly see that the hole the coyote was head dunking in on my last visit is indeed another bison carcass that was under the ice and is now floating with the warm temperatures the past few days. It is probably a bit too far out for terrestrial scavengers like a coyote to reach but there were a couple of ravens nearby and one was sitting and feeding on the first carcass. I soon spotted a coyote headed across the ice toward the first carcass. It slowly approached and the raven seemed to know it was safe in its watery cafe. The two had a staring standoff until the coyote gave up and headed toward the second carcass, only to be frustrated again by its inability to reach it.

    –A coyote wishing it had wings

    Another coyote soon showed up and followed in the path of the first, but came to the same conclusion that a bear was needed to make this food available. It seemed to sadly slink across the frozen lake and soon disappeared into the sage-covered hills.

    A coyote leaves across the frozen pond without getting a morsel of water-soaked bison

    I wondered if these two coyotes were the same ones I had seen a couple of evenings earlier. On that day, I sat watching the area and heard a single coyote bark across the valley. I strained my eyes looking in that direction but didn’t see the noise-maker (it did finally show itself and trot across the valley after this next scene took place). I soon heard another coyote off to the east. I spotted a single coyote trotting toward the carcass. Then there was another single coyote bark further east. Soon, a second coyote came running toward the other, yelping along the way while wagging its tail. Obviously, these two knew each other and seemed glad to reunite. There was one other car in the pullout and, luckily, that person was quiet as this next scene unfolded. Turn up your volume and enjoy this coyote greeting.

    –Two coyotes having a seemingly happy greeting

    It is fitting that Coyote Awareness Week 2026 runs from March 16-22. This is organized by Project Coyote to promote coexistence, education, and protection for this species and other wild carnivores.

  • Scavengers’ Delight

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    For a scavenger, patience is the key to the pantry.

    ~Delia Owens

    Every winter, one or more bison drown in the Blacktail Ponds area when they break through the ice. If the carcass is away from the shore, eagles and ravens can land on it and try to feed but the hide is so tough that it takes things with teeth (like coyotes, wolves, bears) to break through. The carcass shown below has been floating in this small pool for some time now and I have seen coyotes looking longingly at it from the bank but I haven’t seen any on it (though eagles and ravens have landed on it and the ribs are exposed so maybe something has been able to pull away at some of the meat).

    A bison carcass floats in a small pond in the Blacktail Ponds area of the park (click photos to enlarge)

    A few days ago I drove into the park and saw a couple of cars at a pullout close to the carcass so I pulled in. The first thing I saw was an adult bald eagle sitting several yards away with that typical eagle “I’m mad at something” look in its eyes.

    A bald eagle staring at the carcass area (note the leg band)

    Soon, a coyote appeared and one of the folks standing nearby told me that the eagle and coyote were “fighting” near a small water hole right before I drove up (that may explain that look in the eagle’s eyes). Bald eagles are generally displaced from a carcass by a coyote, but there may be a disagreement or two before that happens. There were also several magpies and a few ravens at the water-filled hole that was many yards away from the floating bison carcass.

    The somewhat timid-looking coyote approaches the scavenging corvids
    A black-billed magpie flies off with a morsel in its beak as the coyote gets close

    As I watched, the coyote went up to the hole and dunked his head down into the icy water! What is going on here?

    The coyote does a head dunk in the small water hole

    He pulls out a long stringy object that I realized was the intestines of a creature (probably a bison). But I did wonder how it got over to this spot (and under water) if it was from the floating carcass many yards away.

    The coyote pulls out a chunk of intestines from the water hole

    This next clip is not for the squeamish I suppose. It shows the coyote pulling out some more of the internal organs of a carcass as magpies and a raven continue to pick at the leftovers. Notice the circular patch of dried “grass” that surrounds this small water hole. That is probably the contents of the deceased animals’ rumen (one of the four chambers of the stomach of grazers like bison – ruminants). Melissa and I discussed the oddity of the distance of this pile of “goodies” so far from the floating carcass. Did something manage to get the organs out of the carcass and carry it here? Or is this from another bison carcass that is submerged beneath the ice layer but that has this hole that gives critters access? However it happened, this coyote was doing a bunch of head dunks to pull out whatever it could to eat as other scavengers looked on (and grabbed some for themselves).

    –The coyote doing a head dunk to pull up some lunch

    I sat here for over an hour and a half watching this play out. The wind was fierce so I stayed close to the truck to shield myself and the camera from the gusts as much as possible. After many head dunks, the coyote walked off about 40 feet and laid down. The bald eagle then started walking toward the carcass. But the coyote was having none of that and got up and positioned itself between the incoming eagle and the hole. The coyote then resumed “bobbing for guts” as the eagle looked on.

    –The coyote and eagle in a standoff

    But the eagle was not to be outdone. When the coyote stepped away at one point to chew on its snack, the eagle swooped in and grabbed a section of the intestines and flew off landing several hundred feet away to pick at the remains in peace.

    The eagle snags some food from behind the coyotes’ back

    After several more head dunks, the coyote seemed satiated, but perhaps unhappy with its appearance (and maybe smell). So, he started rubbing his head and neck on nearby shrubs to rid himself of any unpleasant residue. It seemed as though only certain shrubs would do as he would walk along rubbing on some and rejecting others.

    ==The coyote seeks out some shrubs to rub off the grime and smell of his lunch

    The eagle took off and flew around the area spooking a group of mallards that had been in a small section of open water on a larger pond. It finally headed back to the floating carcass and landed.

    The eagle flies toward the floating carcass

    That eagle only stayed a short time before flying off to the far shore of the pond. Another adult eagle came in and headed straight for the floating carcass while the first eagle sat and watched what I assume was its mate. A third bald eagle, a juvenile, soared overhead shortly after the arrival of the second adult, but never came in to the site.

    –A second bald eagle flies onto the carcass (slow motion)

    The second eagle started tugging at the skin and even plunged its head underwater several times to search for available meat. But I never saw it come away with anything edible.

    –An eagle pulling at the carcass trying to get a morsel

    I finally headed home with the second eagle still on the carcass and its mate watching, perhaps knowing they would both need to wait for an awakening grizzly to come and pull the bison out of the water before they would get much else from this carcass.

    The second eagle was still trying when I pulled away to drive home.

  • First Flower?

    Posted by

    Melissa Dowland

    A couple days ago, Mike and I went for a hike in Custer-Gallatin National Forest not far from our house. The trail followed a small creek up a ravine dotted with large Douglas fir trees and limber pines. We were excited to see three species of deciduous trees as well: quaking aspen, Rocky Mountain maple, and alder. Most of the trail was snow-free, as this has been a mild and warm winter. However, the day of our hike was cold and windy, so at least the trail was frozen rather than muddy!

    Very chilly! Plus, blaze orange as tribal members are still hunting in the vicinity.

    On our way down, we struck off through some sagebrush on a game trail to a flat hill overlooking the Yellowstone River valley and across to Electric Peak. The trail was dotted with piles and piles of elk scat, more than we’ve seen on pretty much any trail we’ve been on. As we reach a flat area and looked around us, I noticed a group of elk on the slope across the creek from us. It was a group of about 25 elk, all looking over at us. Outside of the national park, elk are hunted, so these animals were wary. I checked them out through my small, car binoculars (I had forgotten my real ones at home, duh!). Then, a bit to the left, I was shocked to notice an even larger herd of elk. They covered the open sagebrush slope. I counted tens through my binoculars. I think there were perhaps 200 total, including the 25 I had seen originally. It was quite an impressive sight. You might think that would have been the highlight of our hike… but wait…

    That’s a lot of elk scat, folks.

    I’ve been seeing lots of pictures of trout lilies from folks in North Carolina lately. Usually, wildflowers in Yellowstone don’t start until much later, though of course, we’re still learning the phenological timeline here as we experience our first spring as residents of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Around the house, we’ve seen green rosettes of leaves that look like they’re starting to come to life as temperatures warm. But honestly, I’m not sure they’ve changed much. Plus, this has been a very odd winter, with much warmer temperatures than normal.

    An illustration of the development of a trout lily flower I did for a writing project I’ve been working on… more on this in the coming months.

    When I spotted a yellow flower hugging the ground near the rock I was sitting on, I was excited! It reminded me of the yellow stonecrop (lanceleaf stonecrop) that is abundant around here. In the summer, we had seen a Rocky Mountain parnassian butterfly laying eggs on and near stonecrop plants out in the park. I immediately thought of those butterfly eggs and wondered if they’d be hatching soon to munch on the spring stonecrop growth.

    Seeing one yellow flower, I started to see more. They were dotting the hillside we were on! There seemed to be another flower about every four or five feet. Mike and I both took a number of pictures with our phones, thinking to share about our first wildflowers in March in Montana!

    Our first spring “flowers!” (Note the quotation marks… and keep reading!)

    Fast forward a couple of days. I wanted to verify which stonecrop flower this was and look at its typical blooming season. I pulled our trusty “Flora of the Yellowstone” field guide. I flipped to the entry for stonecrop, of which there is apparently just one species. As I looked at the pictures, I realized they didn’t look very much like the yellow flowers we had seen on the trail. I pulled up my pictures to compare. Neither the flowers nor the leaves matched. Not a stonecrop! I flipped through the section of the field guide for yellow flowers. Nothing matched the flowers we had seen. When in doubt, there are resources for these things… so I plugged a photo of the flowers in my SEEK app. It immediately identified my “flower” as mustard flower rust, Puccinia monoica. I looked through the images of the species in the app… indeed, that’s exactly what Mike and I had seen. Not a flower at all!

    This discovery set us off on a huge google-fest to try to figure out what exactly was going on. Here’s the story, to the best of my ability to explain it. The rust is a fungi. Like many other rusts, it requires two host plants. The rust I was most familiar with in North Carolina was cedar apple rust that infected cedar and apple trees. Mustard flower rust uses a few species of grass as its primary host (where spores for sexual reproduction are produced) and plants in the mustard family as its alternate host (a second host needed for other parts of its life cycle). The plant we were seeing with its yellow “flowers” was a rock cress, which is in the mustard family, an alternate host for the mustard flower rust.

    It turns out that the mustard flower rust is an example of a “zombie fungus.” It takes control of the plant to make it produce the yellow flower-mimic we were seeing all over the hillside. It starts when fungal spores land on the mustard plant. These spores are haploid (which I had to look up), meaning that they have only half the chromosomes of the plant. In the case of mammals, an analog would be eggs and sperm. However, these spores (basidiospores, if you want some new vocabulary to throw around at your next cocktail party) can do a lot more than just an egg or sperm cell can. They land on the mustard plant and immediately grow hyphae to tap into the rock cress’s nutrient flow. The fungus infiltrates multiple genes of the plant, triggering a number of different processes. The plant begins to produce smaller, rounded leaves that are more symmetrical than normal to make those leaves look more like a flower. The fungus also suppresses the development of real flowers so the leaves it is busy turning into fake-fungus-flowers will linger longer. It activates genes in the plant for the production of wax, which may keep the pseudoflowers from drying out. It increases sugar production in the plant to create a fake-fungus-nectar that is twenty times more sugary than normal nectar AND it has the plant synthesize fragrant compounds that smell good to pollinators!

    Why does it do this, you might ask? Well, just like the flowers it is mimicking, the fungus needs to transfer genetic material to sexually reproduce. As the fungus grows into the host rock cress, it develops fungal structures known as spermatogonia. The spermatogonia are yellow dots covering the surface of the modified leaves, giving the pseudoflowers their yellow coloration, which can help attract pollinators (and fool naturalists), too! These structures produce spermatia spores (also haploid, like the basidiospores, because they haven’t met “the right one” just yet), the next phase of the fungus’s life cycle. Now, the fungus could just rely on the wind to spread those spores (and if you keep reading, you will find that it does, indeed, use the wind later in its super complicated life cycle). But this fungus selected for a different dispersal mechanism at this stage of its development. Pollinators including bees, flies, ants, and wasps are attracted by the scent, sweet nectar, and yellow coloration of the fake-fungus-flower. As they land to collect nectar, they also pick up the spermatia produced by the fungus. When they fly off to find another nice-smelling, super-sweet-treat fungus-flower, they carry the spores with them. Basically, the fungus hijacks the plant AND the local pollinators to reproduce.

    You’re looking at this “flower” differently now, aren’t you!

    Pretty crazy, right? And honestly, this is the heart of the story. But I couldn’t leave it there. I wanted to know the whole story, the rest of the rust’s life cycle. It was a deep dive into terms I have not heard since high school, but it’s fascinating. If you want to join me in this rabbit hole… keep reading.

    When a pollinator covered in fungus spermatia lands on another rock cress that is also infected with the rust (because, of course, that rock cress has bright yellow, nice-smelling, nectar-producing psuedoflowers too), complementary spermatia join (love at first sight!). This is the first step in fungal sex. It is definitely not the last, because the haploid — remember, half the chromosomes — cell nuclei of the spermatia don’t join just yet; instead, they hang out together-but-separate within the same cell. (Need another vocab word for your next cocktail party? Try “dikaryotic.” Autocorrect just tried to change that to eukaryotic. You might remember eukaryotic, as I do, from high school biology class. Eukaryotic is the word for cells with a nucleus, as opposed to prokaryotic, which are cells like bacteria that don’t have a nucelus. Well, dikaryotic, a new word for me, means a cell with two haploid nuclei within the same cell. Never knew that was a thing. Anyway, enough biology for now.)

    The new, friendly-but-not-totally-joined-yet spermatia work together to grow new “spermatogonial hyphae” into the plant. These trigger even more changes in that one poor rock cress. The yellow on the pseudoflowers fades to green, and cup-like structures called aecia develop. (As if the plant hasn’t had enough already, though at least it is allowed to stop producing the super-sweet nectar at this point.) And what do those aecia do? Make aeciospores, of course. Now you’re getting the hang of this, aren’t you! The aeciospores are still dikaryotic (two haploid nuclei just hanging together, remember?) and are sent off on the wind to find… some grass, which by this time of year is growing! Yup, we’ve finally made it to the primary host for the mustard flower rust!

    Oh, but it’s not over yet… the aeciospores send hyphae into the grass to make uredinia which make urediniospores. Still dikayrotic, still just chilling with each other (are they ever going to get it together?!?!). Over the course of the summer, the urediniospores blow around in the wind and infect more grasses and make more urediniospores. This is the phases where the fungus can really make an impact and spread itself around, until… fall comes and the grasses begin dying back. The change of seasons triggers a change in the uredinia, which turn into telia. (Why not, right? We all grow and change… and if we’re lucky, the other haploid nucleus we’re hanging out with loves us anyway). Guess what the telia make? Teliosporses, of course! Teliospores have nice thick cell walls to get them through the cold, dry winter. Not dissimilar to what sometimes happens when two humans are holed up together for a long time, those two cell nuclei finally join up to make a diploid cell nucleus (aka, sex)! Woo hoo! A new baby fungus is born!

    You thought that was it, didn’t you? Not quite. Because, come spring, the teliospores germinate and grow something called basidia (shall we call them teenage fungi?). Inside the basidia, meiosis occurs. (Had you forgotten that word from high school biology? Me too. Meiosis is when cells divide and also divide their chromosomes. It’s the process that makes sperm and eggs. We’re back to haploid, folks!) Anyway, you know where this is going… the basidia make these haploid basidiospores, and the wind carries the basidiospores to rock cress as it is just emerging in early spring, say in March on the slopes above a creek covered in elk turds just outside of Yellowstone. In case you missed it (because this is ridiculously complicated and therefore ridiculously long), this is where we started the story! The basidiospores grow hyphae in the rock cress that affect its genes and create pseudoflowers that are dotted with spermatogonia…. and the cycle continues.

    It is truly amazing how complicated life is, particularly fungi. Fungi can do amazing (and creepy) things. And I would never have known about any of this if I hadn’t been really excited to see my first spring “wildflower” in my new home!

    If you made it to this point, you must be really interested, so here’s a list of references that helped Mike and I piece together the crazy story of the mustard flower rust:

    Now, to see if we can watch the yellow “flower” turn green… or find the rust on some grasses in the area… a naturalist’s work is never done…

  • Icy Bison

    Posted by

    Mike Dunn

    Always be yourself. Unless… you can be a bison. Then, always be a bison.

    ~Unknown

    I had hoped to get some classic photos of bison in winter – their breath showing like a small cloud around their heads on a below-freezing morning, their coats covered in ice, and their determination and strength showing in their eyes. But, this was the winter that wasn’t here in Yellowstone so icy bison were not a common sight this year. Instead, this winter in Yellowstone stands out for its lack of consistent, deep snow and mild, above-average temperatures. Though our winter is far from over, even when it snows like it did earlier this week, it has melted away rather quickly and temperatures have not been much below zero these past few months. But there were a few frosty mornings that I spent time with the bison, one of my favorite creatures here in Yellowstone.

    Bison are extremely well-adapted to the bitter cold when it does occur. The have a thick winter coat consisting of two layers – a dense undercoat and a thick, coarse outer layer of guard hairs that helps repel water and wind. The dense coat has close to 20,000 hairs per square inch (that’s about 10X the number on some cattle and 2000x that of a human). This insulation means that snow doesn’t melt on the back of a healthy bison. They are supposedly “comfortable” at temperatures down to -40 degrees F.

    I haven’t seen a lot of bison “snow plowing” this winter (using their massive heads to swing back and forth to uncover dried grasses beneath the snow) since the snow just has not been that deep. We did see some when we went into the interior of the park (where snow is typically much deeper than in the northern range) on a snow coach back in January. Their massive humps are the muscles that power this head swinging behavior that is critical for their winter diet.

    Here are a few photos of these magnificent animals as they survive like generations before them in this winter landscape.

    A bison that had been “snow plowing” at Old Faithful in January (click photos to enlarge)
    A bison wades across the Firehole River at Old Faithful
    A frosty bison on a cold morning in the northern range
    Frosty eye lashes
    Some bison slowly walking across the snowy landscape of Lamar Valley

    And here are a couple of bison videos from this winter…(best viewed full screen)

    –A lone bison bull treks across the frozen landscape of Round Prairie

    This next scene can happen anytime of year but seems a bit more common in winter as bison use the roads for travel instead of having to walk through the deep snows (that usually are here). I came around a curve and was greeted by a large herd of bison running towards me so I stopped, rolled down my window, and enjoyed the scene. A long line of cars was behind them.

    –A winter bison jam…turn your sound up for the full effect

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