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.

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