This is the contemplative stillness that I seek when I’m meditating. I get it sometimes for minutes at a time, but the owls…they’ve got for hours.
I can walk right up to them. They notice me. Blink. Blink again. Then it’s back to their peaceful calm.
Back in January I wrote a post about watching the bald eagles at two different nests beginning the process of fixing up their nests for the spring. The first couple – which I called the Hauser eagles because the nest was near Hauser Dam on the Missouri – was very busy working on renovating a nest that they hadn’t used for a couple of years. Couple two – the Craig eagles, since their nest was located near the town of Craig – was a bit more laid back about renovations, since they had just used their nest the year before.
I looked forward to spending the spring months playing amateur naturalist: systematically watching the photographing the nests, and keeping notes on each visit. My own little tribute to Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.
And that’s what I’ve been doing. I began watching the eagles in the cold and snow of March, and have been watching regularly since then. Yesterday I visited the Craig eagles, and late last week I checked on the Hauser couple. It’s much more pleasant now.
On March 7 the Hauser eagles were already sitting on the nest. It seemed early for them to already be incubating, but that’s what seemed to be happening. Usually one eagle stayed on the nest, but sometimes they hung out there together. Typically one eagle was on the nest when I arrived, and the second would show up within an hour to trade places.
The Craig eagles were much slower to sit on the nest; in early March there was no one around, but by the end of March the incubation had started.
It wasn’t exactly rough duty watching these guys, either. The setting of each of these nests is pretty gorgeous:
The Hauser nest is in a fir tree halfway up the slope.
The Craig nest is in the old Ponderosa pine on the right.
The weeks passed and I kept watching. It wasn’t boring, either: I was seeing the eagles catching fish, calling to each other when the partner was too slow to take his or her turn on the nest, and attacking magpies who got too close to the nest.
When I arrived at the Hauser nest on April 21, things looked different. The eagle was in the nest, but it seemed to be sitting higher than before. Eventually the second eagle returned, and they both were focused on something in the nest: an eaglet! I could just see his little head poking up over the side of the nest. Too small for a photo, but he was there. When I next returned to the nest – about 10 days later – the eaglet was big enough to see clearly:
Things at the Craig nest took longer. It wasn’t until early May that I saw an eaglet:
and it took until last week before I knew for sure that there were three young ones in the Craig nest.
Parent returning to Craig nest.
The lone Hauser eaglet is quickly getting bigger, but it will still be some weeks until it flies.
Meanwhile, one parent or the other keeps an eye on things.
Three eaglets at one nest and one at the other: success!
Sure, bears can be cute. That Yogi, he’s pretty dapper. But bear cubs? Now that’s some unbearable cuteness.*
(* thanks, Linda!)
And everyone in Yellowstone thinks so, too. A mama bear with a cub is sure to bring out the crowds.
Of course we stop when we see this kind of action. And it’s worth it to see a mama black bear and a tiny cub of the year foraging just a couple of hundred feet from the road.
We thought there was only one cub, but suddenly mom turned her attention to something in a nearby tree. It seemed like mom wanted junior to climb, but he wasn’t so keen on the idea:
We heard bawling from high in the tree…a second cub!
No, wait…there are two in the tree! They look like spider monkeys as they climb down.
Mama bear and three tiny cubs, totally oblivious to the madly clicking camera shutters, the chatter of the photographers, or the rangers telling everyone to “stop taking pictures now, and move up the hill.”
This much cuteness deserves a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCKRzKTRQB8
We’re idling in a line of cars on the road to Norris Hot Springs in Yellowstone. Five cars ahead I see a white van stopped in the middle of the road. A car is stopped in the other lane as well, so we’re not going anywhere until these yahoos remember that they’re not the only ones in the park. Grrrr. I can see folks beginning to line the road and pulling out the big scopes, but don’t have any idea what they’re seeing.
May in Yellowstone. It’s actually my favorite time to visit, but I’m clearly not the only one thinking that.
Suddenly the folks setting up their scopes are running back to their vehicles, and the cars ahead of us take off. As we pass the open meadow where everyone was looking we see a gray wolf lope into the trees. Cool.
Cars pull over at the next available wide spot in the road, but we continue further, to a pullout that overlooks a big meadow on the other side of the forest that the wolf disappeared into. Perfect. We’re the only ones here.
We find a log to sit on, and watch the meadow. If he keeps on trekking, I’m guessing he’ll emerge along the edge of the creek, about a half a mile away. One other woman joins us. She tells us she’s been coming to Yellowstone for years, but never seen a wolf.
We wait. And wait. It begins to look like he decided to take a nap in the trees. Another five minutes, and we decide that we’ll have to make do with that one earlier glimpse. We stand up, and I take one more quick scan of the far side of the meadow. There he is! Patience rewarded. Through my viewfinder I can see that he’s beautifully reflected in the creek:
He seems nervous about something behind him,
But is oblivious to the three of us, sitting quietly on the hillside. The woman who had never seen a wolf if beside herself with excitement, but she stays admirably still and quiet as he heads straight for us.
He’s 150 feet from us, and still doesn’t see us. Getting too close.
I’m just about to suggest that we make a move when he turns and heads into the trees. He probably knew we were there all along.
He’s gone. But I won’t forget that face.
It’s not supposed to be cold and windy in southeastern Utah at the end of April. I’d envisioned clear blue skies, warm sun, and hiking in shorts and short sleeves. What we got was highs in the 40s, and 25 mile an hour winds. But the bright sun made it all OK.
Really, all these layers and it’s almost May?
We were at one of my favorite little parks: Natural Bridges. I’d read about a ruin near Sipapu Bridge that the Park Service doesn’t tell you about, and I wanted to check it out. And yes, if you ask about this little ruin at the visitor center they’ll tell you they can’t say anything about it. (But it’s not really that hidden, so I’m going to tell you how to get there: go to Sipapu Bridge and take a right – upcanyon. Hike a little less than a mile and you’ll see the ruin on the left.) It’s a sweet little ruin, with some nice rock art as well.
The hike to Sipapu Bridge is fun, too. After finding the secret ruin we continued on to Kachina Bridge and then hiked across the mesa top to return to the car, which makes a perfect day hike. You can also take a bigger loop and see all three of the bridges, which is well worth it.
It’s not easy to make out any of the bridges from the top: they need the empty sky behind them to put them in perspective. But it’s still impressive to look down on these huge structures spanning the canyon:
It’s always a treat for those of us from the mountains to get to start a hike going downhill. The Sipapu trail includes three ladders, which adds a little challenge. (Especially when you’re hiking with a friend whose broken arm is still mending…luckily she turned out to be quite skilled at going down ladders one-armed!)
Once we reached the canyon floor the wind calmed down, and we could start shedding layers.
We headed upcanyon, enjoying the warmth and sunlight. After about 20 minutes we found the hidden ruin. You see the pictographs first.
The ruin is fairly small, but it includes some interesting details.
Inside this room is a small enclosure that surrounds a peephole.
No one seems to know what these little holes were used for. They’re fairly common, but you don’t seem them at every ruin. Everyone’s first thought is that they’re defensive, but you really couldn’t shoot an arrow through that little hole. Here’s what you see through the hole:
Who knows?
Some details from the ruin:
The ledge makes a dandy picnic spot before exploring the rest of the ruins that are a bit harder to get to.
See the door still propped against the wall?
This ledge also includes some interesting petroglyphs:
Looking at the setting of this little dwelling gives you a good idea of why they chose to live in this spot, doesn’t it?
Canyonlands National Park, May 2014
“Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work
which is mostly standing still and
learning to be astonished.
— Mary Oliver
Waaaaay off in the distance – at least a mile away – we could see a brown dot moving around a meadow. There was no one around with a good scope, so we had to depend on our binoculars to get a better look. Magnified, the brown dot was just a bigger brown dot, but it moved like a bear, and was surrounded by a group of hyperactive ravens. Could there be a kill there?
I knew my camera couldn’t get a good shot at that distance, but decided to zoom in as far as I could to try and get a better look. It worked; the shot was fuzzy as could be, but we were clearly looking at a grizzly. Excellent.
I took another shot and we wandered back to the car to see what else we could find. When I got home and put both photos on the computer, I noticed something in the second photograph.
Do you see it? Here, I’ll zoom in a little more:
There, on the right…it’s a wolf! He was sitting there the whole time, watching the grizzly go at the carcass. Amazing. Here he is blown up a bit more:
How much do I love that? The nature-watcher’s version of the 60’s film Blowup. Remember it, when the fashion photographer blows up one of his photos and sees a dead body on the background? Much nicer to find a hidden wolf!
A winter storm warning put a crimp in our plans for a long spring hike this past Saturday. Instead, we checked out the weather, saw the storm heading our way from the northwest and decided to head southeast and see if we could outrun it.
Surprisingly, our plan worked. We ended up at the Wildlife Management Area at the southern end of Canyon Ferry Lake under blue skies. Plenty of wind, but no snow.
We watched the front heading our way, but it hung over the mountains long enough for us to find a calm little cove that was sheltering hundreds of white pelicans.
At first we saw a few determinedly flying into the wind.
More and more passed us, until we found them hanging out on a couple of islands in the sheltered cove. There were hundreds of them.
They’d take off, land, take off again, circle around, and land again. Sometime they seemed to group together for an important discussion, and then take off again.
They were gorgeous.
We wandered back along an irrigation ditch, marveling at the fact that the weather hadn’t caught us yet,
and spooked a trio of sandhill cranes, who took off into the wind, chattering their alarm.
The discoveries didn’t end there. We decided to explore Avalanche Gulch on the way home, and on the way in spied a large herd of elk in a stubble field. Most were resting, but there were plenty of sentries keeping a keen lookout.
Then, to top it off, a group of mountain goats was grazing on the hillside at the mouth of the canyon!
Not too shabby.
“Spring” in Montana is a weeks long exercise in frustration. Gray skies, wind-blown dust, snow storms, driving sleet…it drives me nuts.
But when I hear the snow geese honking overhead as they make their way north, or see “my” eagles fixing up their nests I get a glimmer of hope that change is really on the way. One by one, the birds return: first, of course, are the huge flocks of snow geese and tundra swans. Then one day a mountain bluebird streaks from a fencepost, followed by a western meadowlark singing from another post. Redwinged blackbirds are suddenly everywhere, and the ducks! Northern shovelers, buffleheads, and hooded mergansers suddenly appear in ponds and rivers where just last week there were only lonely mallards. The gorgeous pelicans come back, and the grebes are changing into their silly breeding hairdos. The osprey usually take longer to show up, but I did see an industrious fellow last week, busily repairing his nest.
When I hear the rattling call of the sandhill cranes, and see them gliding into their favorite stubble fields…that’s when I know that winter is truly over. They’re here. It’s spring.
Snow geese weren’t the only migrators at Freezout Lake last week. We were thrilled to discover a healthy bunch of bald eagles gathered at the south end of the lake. We counted at least fifty of them – all ages – sitting on the ice. They were buzzing the ducks, keeping an eye on the snow geese, and squabbling over fish they’d caught.
But they spent most of their time standing around on the ice, looking at each other. (If you look carefully at the picture below, you can see skeins of snow geese in the sky. They’d look like they’d want to land in the open water, but would veer off in a panic when they noticed the eagles.)
Birding the world on a budget!
Each post includes a "photo tour."
Humour connoisseur. Analyzer. Creative. Self deprecator. Political arm chair quarterback. Unpredictably right. Cartoonist who can’t draw🥺
Adventure Travel
Adventurers Unite
by Molly McCahan
Watercolors, Oils, Prints, & Cards by Paulette Etchart
Samuel Bloch - Emotions from the world
Explorers sharing adventures from around the globe.
Life in Arctic Norway
WANDERER. ADVENTURER. DREAMER.
International and local escapades about wine, food, music, art, and ye who also strive.
A Montana writer, designer, artist, feminist, food and wine adventuress.
The adventures of an almost outdoorsman...
Posts from our worldwide adventure!
A National Park Adventure
Off the Beaten Path: Hikes, Backpacks, and Travels 