Elk

On our recent road trip in the US, we spent some time at Five Springs, on the edge of the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming. This is one of my favorite spots for paragliding, hiking, and nature photography. One day we went for a hike along a ridge with some high alpine meadows. We were lucky to see a herd of elk with lots of young ones. We were far enough away that they didn't immediately leave, so we got a chance for some photographs.

It was hard to get an accurate count of them since they were moving in and out of view. But there were lots, I would guess 30 to 40 in total. One of them had a radio collar. (right most)

I took lots of photos but they're all quite similar.

Despite sensing our presence, they were still calm enough for this mother to let her little one feed.

Ambush

I saw a bee on this plant, but it wasn't moving, which is unusual. Looking closer I found a crab spider (Goldenrod crab spider?) had ambushed the bee. It was quite hidden but it was preoccupied enough with its meal to let me pull some leaves back to get a better view.

I went back a little later and the spider had turned the bee around so it could "eat" the other half. (They inject digestive fluids and then suck out the resulting slurry.)

When I checked in the morning at first all I could find was the empty husk of the bee. Eventually I found the spider hiding a few inches away.

I think the plant it's on is Wolf Willow (native), although Pl@ntNet identifies it as Russian Olive, which is related but not native (from Asia). But Russian Olive is a small tree, whereas these were bushes. The flowers smelled nice.

Photos of the Week

The Western tent caterpillars are numerous right now. People don't like them, but they are actually quite attractive.

My sister Clare would be proud of me for spotting a hummingbird, but it was up in the top of a tree where it was hard to get a good photograph.

This Black Oystercatcher was the opposite, it was on the shore below me so the angle still wasn't ideal. I probably would have overlooked it, but I heard someone say "I wish I knew birds better" so I looked around to see what they were talking about. While I was taking photographs of it, another couple came along and exclaimed about the colorful beak and eye. The man asked if I sold my photographs to National Geographic. I said no, to which he replied, "Oh well, I guess it's still a good hobby." I hope so, since only an extremely small fraction of photographers sell their photographs to Nat Geo.

I'm still getting used to Great Blue Herons being so much more common here than in Saskatchewan.

Now that the weather has finally warmed up a bit (coolest May on record) the bees are coming out. There are certainly plenty of flowers for them. A lot of them are bumble bees, but they are hard to identify when they are buzzing around. I think this is a Yellow-faced bumble bee. It was a large one, perhaps the queen herself out foraging while establishing a new nest.

Western honey bees are the most common honey bees, despite being non-native. They are the honey bees used in commercial honey production.

I'm not sure what kind of bumble bees these were.