We have five fires burning in Yellowstone presently, the largest being down near the Lake area. It started out at a 3 acre burn and yesterday had grown to over 3000 acres. Firefighters are in at Fishing Bridge setting up their headquarters, They will go in and start containing the fire there. The other fires will continue to burn since they are not endangering facilities or people. It is nature's way of cleaning and thinning out the over abundance of trees, disease and insects. New tree life will immediately begin with the pinecones burst and seeds pop out to be sown in the rich soil produced by the ashes, dead grass and animal feces.
Last week while we were out photographing the bison in their "rut" the lens on our Canon camera got stuck. A new one is on it's way, in the meanwhile the pictures we have taken are OK at best.
We got up at 5AM last week and headed to the Petrified tree which is less than 5 miles from us. We saw two bull moose - one was very large and the other was young and a little shy. There have been as many as 4 large bull moose there over the last two weeks. They travel between there and Elk Creek and the Floating Island site. There is also a cow moose their with her calf. Hope to see more of them next week when Greg comes to visit.
We left the tree and traveled to Lamar Valley where the Bison have only one thing on their minds - REPRODUCTION. It is so interesting to watch the males choosing a female, fighting for her and then being an obnoxious nuisance to her until the time comes to mate. The poor girl has no space of her own - he cuts her off at every pass. He is very adamant that another male is NOT going to come close to her etc.
We had two more people to leave early. Our dishwasher got a better paying job with good benefits in Silver Gate, MT. Our dorm leader left -----just because.
Today we drove to Bozeman to shop and take care of some business. On the way up we saw Mountain Goats and a few cow elk with their offspring. Hope the pictures show up good.
He is quite the big Bullwinkle!!
The sun coming up through the smoky haze over Paradise Valley.
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