June 24, 2014

Ducks!

The day started at 6:00 am and I went over to the Blacktail site to see what was happening. Nothing was happening. Some people had been there for an hour and seen nothing. I stood around for about 30 minutes and still nothing was happening, so I decided that today was not going to be a wolf day.

Several times, I had heard about some harlequin ducks down near Le Hardy Rapids, so I decided to try to photograph them. All I knew was they would sit on a rock in the Yellowstone River near the base of the rapids, so I went down and started looking. At the first turnout below the rapids, I found this:

I don't know what kind of ducks these are, my books don't seem to have them; but they clearly aren't harlequin ducks. (today, the 25th, I learned that they are mergansers.  Thanks, Bill). So, more searching was needed. I moved up the the turnout right at the bottom of the rapids and, after a bit of walking around, found them:

The rest of the morning was spent driving out the east entrance road and napping.

Along the way, was this scene:

I planned to check out the North Fork of the Shoshone river, but I got to Sylvan Lake, about halfway to the east entrance, and stopped. It was a pretty lake, so I just sat looking at it for a while. I got attacked by a nap and the next thing I knew, it was an hour later. So, back to camp for lunch.

Then, I drove out to Cooke City to use the internet to measure the distance again out to the wolf rendezvous site, using a different method. This time I got 1.75 miles. I think this is a more accurate measurement. On the way back, I saw 6 mountain goats on Baronette Peak and this duck near Pebble Creek:

Then, it was back to camp for a shower and a grilled steak for dinner. It's been thundering and raining off and on all evening, so I've been inside reading.