Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.

~E.B. White

We ventured into the park this weekend hoping to find some wildlife and to just get out and enjoy the scenery and weather on perhaps the last day before the late-coming snows arrive. It was overcast even though the weather had predicted a sunny day. We quickly saw elk, bison, and a large flock of trumpeter swans on Blacktail Ponds. A little farther along I spotted group of birds perched in a dead tree along the road – waxwings! They looked a little bigger than the cedar waxwings we commonly see back in North Carolina and in our yard here in Montana. The light was terrible for photos but we pulled off the road and got out the spotting scope and confirmed they were Bohemian waxwings, a species that only occurs here in the winter and one that we have only seen once. Named for their nomadic wanderings, especially in winter, Bohemian waxwings are a bit chunkier in appearance than cedar waxwings and have more reddish tones in their feathers and some white in their wings. We traveled on happy to have seen this elusive species.

As we approached a group of cars at the far end of Lamar Valley, Melissa spotted a golden eagle perched in a tree along the river. We pulled over and I walked back to the eagle to get a couple of pics.

Meanwhile, she got out the spotting scope and looked in the direction of the group of observers down by the vehicles just ahead. As we had suspected, the group was watching wolves of the Junction Butte pack. A large herd of elk were bunched together on the slope and we could see wolves on the horizon above them. Melissa got this video through her spotting scope showing the scale of the scene.

–Elk bunched up in a defensive group eyeing the nearby Junction wolves. A few of them can be seen here trotting along the skyline above the elk (video by Melissa Dowland)

We watched the wolves until they all disappeared over the ridge with a group of pups having a playfest for several minutes before finally following the adults. Melissa walked back to the eagle and got this quick clip of it. The combination of that spotting scope, her Pphone and the Phone Skope adapter is truly amazing.

The golden eagle surveying the landscape of Lamar valley (video by Melissa Dowland)

We then did a short hike down to Soda Butte Creek and then headed back through Lamar Valley to see what we could see. We spotted another, much larger flock of Bohemian waxwings on a snag in Lamar Canyon. We pulled over and since they were on her side, Melissa grabbed my camera to get a few shots.

As I had seen with cedar waxwings in NC, this flock would fly down to a juniper tree and eat fruit, then return to their perches. They sat for awhile and then dropped down to a nearby muddy patch with puddles of water collected in depressions left by bison hoof prints. It was all done in a frenetic fashion and then they would return to their perch. A Townsend’s solitaire was not too fond of this enormous flock of waxwings devouring its winter food supply so it was constantly harassing the waxwings causing them to shift positions on the branches. But it seemed the solitaire knew this was a lost cause as it would periodically fly off and rest before returning to try once more. We headed off for another hike and by the time we finished the skies had cleared so we decided to head back to the waxwings to try to get some more shots. Now the birds were on my side of the car and the light was fantastic. We spent the next hour watching the birds feed, fly to the water, and interact in the snag.

One juniper was just above the water hole and a few birds continued to use that one for feeding allowing me a closer photo in good light.

They would occasionally rush down to the water hole (which looked more like a mud hole from our vantage point inside the car) and create quite the chaotic scene as some birds poked their heads down into the wet hoof prints while others flew back and forth to the snag.

After photographing the birds from inside the car for a long time, we decided Melissa should try to ease out and set up the spotting scope behind the car to get some closer images. The birds tolerated that movement and she was able to get some nice close-ups of the birds on their perch.

–Some typical behaviors of this gregarious species while perched in the dead tree (video by Melissa Dowland)

–A closer look at these beautiful birds (video by Melissa Dowland)

When the birds flew down to the water hole, Melissa was careful not to move so as to not spook them. I continued to shoot from inside the car and managed a few shots of birds in flight as they came and went from the ground.

After spending time watching these beautiful birds, we hope they will visit the mountain ash trees in our yard sometime this winter so we can view them up close. Based on what we saw in the park (we saw another large flock late in the day in the upper part of Lamar Valley), this may be an excellent year for the wandering winter waxwings.