June 19, 2014

Back to chasing wolves and bears. But today involved moose and mountain goats as well.

The day started with a trip over to see if the blacktail group was visible and if could I learn where to look to see them. Success was had on both fronts, sort of. I found I had been looking in almost the right spot, but not quite. Today, when I was corrected, I saw 3 wolves. But it was pretty dull. All they were doing was sleeping. As my neighbor here in camp said, you can only watch sleeping wolves for so long and then you get bored. I quit after 2 hours. In my defense, I was letting lots of people look through the scope at them, so there was something to do. The cold wind also had something to do about it.

Around 9:30, I left and went over to the Lamar to see if anything was happening. It turns out I missed a group of wolves digging out a coyote den and killing most of the pups. Instead, I got to see a group of mountain goats:

And a moose with twin calves:

Not bad, but not as exciting as a wolf/coyote battle.

After that, there were bear sightings and another look at the falcon chicks and a nap.

In the late afternoon, I went back to the Blacktail site and managed to see all 3 pups... for a total of about 2 minutes...from about 2 miles away ... in about 2 hours of standing around and talking and looking. But that's the price you pay to see wolves around here, sometimes.

It wasn't a bad day though – 7 wolf sightings, 3 black bears, 2 grizzly bears, 8 mountain goats and 3 moose.