In the first part of September I made another road trip through Montana and just into Wyoming to Five Springs in the Big Horn mountains. It's an obscure spot, but it's become one of my favorite spots for paragliding and hiking (although I wish it was a little closer!). This is another long one since I'm doing the whole trip in one post.
When I arrived in Havre I took a break in a park. I took a few shots of the fountain, mostly practicing with the new camera.
There were hollyhocks along the fence of a house backing onto the park.
The color attracted me, but I found the insects were also attracted.
The owner of the house came out to see what I was doing and was quite suspicious and almost hostile until I explained I was just taking photographs of the flowers.
As usual I camped in the Bear Paw mountains (more hills) near Havre, and got in a couple of brief warmup paragliding flights off Otis peak. This Woodland Skipper butterfly seemed to like the color of my paraglider.
I saw quite a few pronghorn on the drive. (I also saw lots of hawks, but didn't manage any decent photos of them.)
Of course, I took lots of photographs. For some reason a lot of them were insects this trip. Partly that was because I had my new camera and macro lens.
When I arrived at Five Springs I stopped at the landing zone to put up my wind sock. I found this Mormon cricket beside the road. It was rapidly running away and I didn't have my camera out. I tried to herd it back towards the van, but it wouldn't cooperate. I was pretty sure if I left it to get my camera I'd never find it again. I ended up picking it up and holding it one hand while I got my camera and switched to the macro lens one handed. The long "tail" is its ovipositor (for laying eggs) so it's a female. We have them in Saskatchewan but I'd never seen one till last year.
A few days later I was sitting in the shade of the one tree near the LZ and this male came wandering by. I only had my iPhone but it managed a decent shot. Their color can vary quite a lot from green to black. I've only seen individuals, but at certain times they can swarm like locusts.
My first two days in Five Springs I had a couple of good one hour paragliding flights. I thought those were the warmup for bigger flights, but it turned out they were my best flights of the trip. I had more flights but conditions weren't good enough for me to stay up. But I'm still happy to be here even if the flights are short.
I took two days off from flying to hike from the Five Springs campground up and over Medicine Mountain (10,000 ft) and down to the Wyoming High Country Lodge where I've stayed before. I carried my paraglider hoping to fly off Medicine Mountain either on the way there or the way back. Unfortunately, that didn't work out - the wind was the wrong direction on the way there, and too strong on the way back. It was still a great hike, and staying overnight at the lodge meant I didn't have to carry any camping gear or much food. I basically just took my toothbrush and a spare t-shirt. And my paragliding gear is pretty light.
Unlike last time when it poured with rain at the lodge, this time the weather was great. Normally they would have had frost by now at 9000 ft, but this year they were having a late fall and there were still flowers in the meadow, and lots of different butterflies. I had a good time trying to stalk them from flower to flower.
A small stream runs through the meadow.
People were talking about fishing, but the only trout I saw were less than 6 inches long. Can you spot it?
There were a few butterflies around the campground as well. There was only one kind of bush flowering so they were congregating. I thought these were Aphrodite Fritillaries, but on iNaturalist they were identified as Coronis Fritillaries. I looked them both up and I have a hard time telling them apart.
These wasps took a break from feeding on the flowers to mate:
I had another wasp visit me at the campsite:
And this spider was overlooking my picnic table:
I found this one inside the van. Luckily there's no wood in the van since it's a wood boring beetle.
I think this one is a burying (or sexton) beetle, another interesting critter. It uses its large antenna to locate dead mice or birds. When multiple beetles find the same carcass they fight over it (males against males and females against females). The winning couple lays its eggs on the carcass and buries it, after removing the fur or feathers. They bury it so it isn't found by other scavengers.
When I got back from my hike I threw my sweaty socks on the picnic table and they attracted this colorful fly:
The usual chipmunks and squirrels were also around. The squirrels were busily snipping pine cones off the trees and dropping them all over my campsite. The pinecones had a lot of sap oozing out of them, which the squirrels got all over their faces when they were eating them. And then the dirt stuck to the sap, giving them black faces.
I didn't see any marmots around the campground like other times, but I did come across this one on my hike:
There were lots of grasshoppers around. The most interesting were these Carolina grasshoppers. The males would fly up into the air and hover making loud clicking sounds to attract females. They were hard to photograph because they were so well camouflaged for the dry dusty ground. You'd see them land, but if you took your eyes off them for a second, they'd be almost impossible to locate again. Although there was a lot of clicking going on, sadly I didn't actually see any of them actually attract a female.
A more colorful variety of grasshopper:
The campground is in a great spot to watch the sunsets.
See all 116 photos in this album
When I arrived in Havre I took a break in a park. I took a few shots of the fountain, mostly practicing with the new camera.
There were hollyhocks along the fence of a house backing onto the park.
The color attracted me, but I found the insects were also attracted.
The owner of the house came out to see what I was doing and was quite suspicious and almost hostile until I explained I was just taking photographs of the flowers.
As usual I camped in the Bear Paw mountains (more hills) near Havre, and got in a couple of brief warmup paragliding flights off Otis peak. This Woodland Skipper butterfly seemed to like the color of my paraglider.
I saw quite a few pronghorn on the drive. (I also saw lots of hawks, but didn't manage any decent photos of them.)
Of course, I took lots of photographs. For some reason a lot of them were insects this trip. Partly that was because I had my new camera and macro lens.
When I arrived at Five Springs I stopped at the landing zone to put up my wind sock. I found this Mormon cricket beside the road. It was rapidly running away and I didn't have my camera out. I tried to herd it back towards the van, but it wouldn't cooperate. I was pretty sure if I left it to get my camera I'd never find it again. I ended up picking it up and holding it one hand while I got my camera and switched to the macro lens one handed. The long "tail" is its ovipositor (for laying eggs) so it's a female. We have them in Saskatchewan but I'd never seen one till last year.
A few days later I was sitting in the shade of the one tree near the LZ and this male came wandering by. I only had my iPhone but it managed a decent shot. Their color can vary quite a lot from green to black. I've only seen individuals, but at certain times they can swarm like locusts.
My first two days in Five Springs I had a couple of good one hour paragliding flights. I thought those were the warmup for bigger flights, but it turned out they were my best flights of the trip. I had more flights but conditions weren't good enough for me to stay up. But I'm still happy to be here even if the flights are short.
I took two days off from flying to hike from the Five Springs campground up and over Medicine Mountain (10,000 ft) and down to the Wyoming High Country Lodge where I've stayed before. I carried my paraglider hoping to fly off Medicine Mountain either on the way there or the way back. Unfortunately, that didn't work out - the wind was the wrong direction on the way there, and too strong on the way back. It was still a great hike, and staying overnight at the lodge meant I didn't have to carry any camping gear or much food. I basically just took my toothbrush and a spare t-shirt. And my paragliding gear is pretty light.
Unlike last time when it poured with rain at the lodge, this time the weather was great. Normally they would have had frost by now at 9000 ft, but this year they were having a late fall and there were still flowers in the meadow, and lots of different butterflies. I had a good time trying to stalk them from flower to flower.
A small stream runs through the meadow.
People were talking about fishing, but the only trout I saw were less than 6 inches long. Can you spot it?
There were a few butterflies around the campground as well. There was only one kind of bush flowering so they were congregating. I thought these were Aphrodite Fritillaries, but on iNaturalist they were identified as Coronis Fritillaries. I looked them both up and I have a hard time telling them apart.
These wasps took a break from feeding on the flowers to mate:
I had another wasp visit me at the campsite:
And this spider was overlooking my picnic table:
I found this one inside the van. Luckily there's no wood in the van since it's a wood boring beetle.
I think this one is a burying (or sexton) beetle, another interesting critter. It uses its large antenna to locate dead mice or birds. When multiple beetles find the same carcass they fight over it (males against males and females against females). The winning couple lays its eggs on the carcass and buries it, after removing the fur or feathers. They bury it so it isn't found by other scavengers.
When I got back from my hike I threw my sweaty socks on the picnic table and they attracted this colorful fly:
The usual chipmunks and squirrels were also around. The squirrels were busily snipping pine cones off the trees and dropping them all over my campsite. The pinecones had a lot of sap oozing out of them, which the squirrels got all over their faces when they were eating them. And then the dirt stuck to the sap, giving them black faces.
I didn't see any marmots around the campground like other times, but I did come across this one on my hike:
There were lots of grasshoppers around. The most interesting were these Carolina grasshoppers. The males would fly up into the air and hover making loud clicking sounds to attract females. They were hard to photograph because they were so well camouflaged for the dry dusty ground. You'd see them land, but if you took your eyes off them for a second, they'd be almost impossible to locate again. Although there was a lot of clicking going on, sadly I didn't actually see any of them actually attract a female.
A more colorful variety of grasshopper:
The campground is in a great spot to watch the sunsets.
See all 116 photos in this album
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