Yellowstone 2009: Summer of Animals

What a great opportunity my family had this summer to vacation in the oldest National Park we have here in the United States.  Yellowstone.  My husband's parents took all of us on the adventure.  Despite the 2 day car trip there and back with 6 adults, 2 kids, and 2 infants (6 mo and 3 mo.)  It was fun to be together and make memories that will last a lifetime.  Well the infants may need to go again...car seats don't allow you to see out the window very well.

Here are the animals we saw that week:

Elk.  If you notice they are still in velvet.  They get new antlers every year and shed them the next spring.  Come fall they will rub their antlers on the trees to get the velvet off.

Photography insight:  With wild animals you get what you get and don't throw a fit!  The sunlight was behind this elk it would have been better if it was shining on his face.  However the silhouette effect does show off the antlers.

Across a canyon we saw Big Horned Sheep.  This was a little buck.

Every day when we came into the park we drove past this Mama Bald Eagle on her nest.

The Remington Man's favorite waterfowl; a wigeon drake (a.k.a. blue male duck)

Pronged Horn Antelope, we saw hundreds on our drive across Colorado but only a few actually in the park.

Moose.  My favorite.  This one we spent half a day hunting down!  I couldn't leave without seeing a moose.  Funny I thought he would have a full white rack; but he was still growing his out and it was also in velvet.  

Bison are everywhere in Yellowstone.  In Oklahoma we call them Buffalo.  In Yellowstone they are like a heard of cattle grazing throughout the day.

A baby bison/buffalo.  To me he looks nothing like his parents.

A Coyote.

We also saw a wolf and a Grizzly Bear but the spot in the distance was nothing to write home about.