Road Trip 6 - Upper Coffeepot

Upper Coffeepot is a nice little campground just outside the western edge of Yellowstone. After spending the day driving through the busy national park, it's a quiet spot to stop. Both times we've been here there have been lots of white pelicans a short walk up the river. The pelicans were on the other side of the river so they were calm about us observing them. Of course, I took a ton of photographs of them.

I assume the pelicans (and the people) are there because of the fish in the river. But later in the day when we saw them they were just relaxing, preening, bathing, and sleeping.

There were enough of them that there were usually a few flying in or out so I got to practice photographing them in flight.

When they land they "ski" in on their feet.

Later in the evening the gulls (Ring-billed?) were skimming the water and grabbing something - I assume small fish.

Some kind of flying insect was hatching in large numbers. I suspect they were the same as this one I found on the ground - some kind of mayfly, maybe a March Brown. Thank goodness they don't bite!

There were so many of them they made photography a challenge at times.

Speaking of insects, this interesting one landed on our picnic table. I think it's a Ribbed Pine Borer, a kind of long-horned beetle, although it doesn't have especially long antennae.

We also had a few chipmunks visit us.

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Road Trip 5 - Yellowstone

I've been home for a while, but I'm still going through photos from our road trip (in between taking and posting new ones). From Five Springs we went to Cody, spent the night, and then the next day drove across Yellowstone Park. National parks, especially popular ones like this, are way too crowded these days but they still have scenery and animals so it's worth a bit of a visit. We don't even attempt to stay overnight. I didn't take a lot of photos this time since we didn't see anything too exciting. (last time we saw a mother grizzly and cubs) We did see a couple of bears but they were so far in the distance they were just brown dots.

Of course, there's always water to photograph.

We were walking beside some rapids in the river and I was surprised to see a group of Harlequin ducks quite close to the trail.

At one point we were driving near a river and I thought I saw a Bald Eagle. It turned out to be a stick with a white patch on it. But this Savannah Sparrow posed briefly for us.

Our last stop in the park was at Artists Point to see Yellowstone Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

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Road Trip 5

One of the things I like about Five Springs (apart from the lack of people!) is the variety of landscapes in the area, from the Big Horn mountains (rising to over 13,000 ft) to the desert and canyons below.

We stopped for lunch one day beside the Big Horn river. After lunch I wandered around with my camera. The first thing I found was that there was a lot of prickly pear cactus, and it was all blooming. I'm used to seeing occasional prickly pear cactus flowers but I don't think I've seen a whole area blooming at once like this.

The flowers are quite pretty up close.

There were a few other flowers around. I think this is Locoweed.

The bank beside the river showed interesting layers of sedimentary rock.

At the bottom of the bank I came across this lizard which took off at an amazingly high speed. I froze and watched where it stopped. I then approached very slowly and it stayed where it was. I think it's a Common Sagebrush Lizard.

A bit later Shelley spotted another lizard. It also made an initial run for it and then froze in place. It turned out to be a Short-horned Lizard (aka a horned or horny toad, even though it's not a toad at all). They are also found in southern Saskatchewan (endangered) although I don't think I ever spotted one there.

Driving by, I noticed a trail head sign on an unmarked gravel side road. We went to investigate and found it was a new trail to Rainbow Canyon. From the Five Springs campground you can see there are some badlands down below but we didn't know how to get to them. The first thing I spotted along the trail were Sego Lilies. (the state flower of Utah) I love the details of the flowers.

The colors and patterns of Rainbow Canyon itself were quite impressive.

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Road Trip 4 - Sheridan

After three nights of camping and with a forecast of bad weather we took a break from Five Springs and drove over to Sheridan on the other side of the Bighorn mountains. It's a nice drive. Along the way we saw some moose near the road that let us photograph them.

Moose shed their antlers every year and you can see the stubs of the new ones.

We also saw a Red-tailed Hawk but it was too far away to get very good photos. Their red tail isn't always obvious, but you can see it in this photo.

In Sheridan we like to visit Sam Mavrakis Pond where there are frogs and turtles and birds. Unfortunately, the frogs are non-native bullfrogs but they're still fun to watch.

At least the turtles are native Painted Turtles. (Unlike the ponds in Victoria which are full of previous pet non-native Yellow-eared Sliders.)

There was a family of Mallards with cute ducklings.

Lots of Red-winged Blackbirds hung out around the pond.

And a few Cedar Waxwings.

There weren't very many damselflies and dragonflies. It's hard to judge, but it seems like there are fewer insects around these days, sadly.

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