Yellowstone Wildlife

I’ve been on the road so much in the last two weeks that it’s hard to even remember my trip to Yellowstone, but I want to tie things together before moving on to my later experiences in Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. I saw far fewer animals on this trip than I did on my early summer trip to Yellowstone, but it’s always exciting to see elk and buffalo in the wild.

This large bull elk seemed supremely confident as he kept watch over

bull Elk

his harem.

Elk Herd

It seemed strange that on my first trip the elk were off by themselves and the bison were in large herds, but on this trip just the opposite was true. Almost all the buffalo I saw were alone

Buffalo

and widely dispersed, like this one that had obviously spent time laying in the dust surrounding the geysers.

Buffalo

Other than a few Canada Geese and mallards, the only interesting birds I saw were these cormorants, which seemed strangely out-of-place here,

cormorants

and two Ravens

raven

that seemed intent on attacking the pack on top of my car, perhaps because they’d seen me eating earlier and suspected I stored the food there. They were so persistent I ended up leaving the site early because they kept attacking the bag when I walked away.