A is for ... continued

 Please don't groan as I continue my posts from Yellowstone.

I know.

More boring animal shots like these two Canadian Geese and their adorable goslings.

I mean seriously?

But Heather about jumped out of the car while it was moving when she realized the geese had cute little fluffy babies.

Saturday brought sunshine
and sunshine brought warmth
and warmth brought out

The Animals!
Especially the ones we we had been looking for all week.

There was a fox den right near the Yellowstone picnic spot in the Little America section of the Park (just before entering into LaMar Valley in the northeast corner).  Brent and I had come to this location several times earlier in the week without success.   It wasn't a total failure.  It was here that we saw the Big Horn Sheep and on another occasion the herd of Mountain Goats.   But we never saw the fox and her two little kits.

When we arrived on Saturday, everyone was looking a different direction than where the den was we had been watching earlier.   We found out that in our absence, a badger had found his way into their den.  The fox had moved their kits to another den and the badger was now in that den.   There was one fox on the hillside, curled up behind some branches and weeds, and watching.

Watching the den like a, well,  like a fox.
And so were all of us.
This is what it looked like (photo by Brent):

 Don't look for me in this photo.  He only caught half the group.  The other half, the group Heather and I were with, was on the other side of the white truck to the right.   If you look close in the above photo, you can see a fox near the top of the hill between the trees.   This was taken after the action, however.

Below is the action.  I have movie ability on my camera.  Did I think to switch it over to movie?  Oh, no.  I was set up on the tri-pod, in a great location, with a great lens, and would I think to even do something so remotely intelligent as video this?   No.  Because it happened all so quickly.

Mr. Badger emerged from the fox den.   At first I thought it was a marmot.  They are all over Yellowstone.  But someone said "badger" and I looked through my telephoto lens, and sure enough.  It was a badger.

I guess he was getting hungry.  The person I was standing next to said they thought the badger took over the den and the fox kits were probably his dinner last night.  Because they hadn't seen them since yesterday.  That made me sad.  The Animal Kingdom is pretty cut throat - no vegetarians in this particular society, that's for sure.

But still.   There was a BADGER in real life!  I have never seen one before, so I was pretty excited.

Ooh, but what's happening.  That fox watching was now moving -
creeping up on the badger.

Watch out badger ... mother fox is not a happy camper!

 She attacks the badger - biting at him with her sharp teeth!

 Snap and retreat ...

...and then snap again!

 ...and again...

 Finally, I got my wits and switched to movie mode, just as the badger backed away and away and back down into the den hole.

So I have a nice video of the badger backing up.

So the badger is back into it's hole, and we are watching the fox as she is watching the hole, when to the left of me people started taking pictures again.  I'm like, "Wha...?"

I turned and there was another fox moving along the mountainside.
With something in it's mouth.
The grandma next to me told her little grandchildren, "Oh, look, the fox is bringing the babies back to its mother."

Nice try, Grandma.

 Looks like a dead ground squirrel to me....

 This fox, whom I will call Fox B, brought the lunch to Fox A, and ...

... transferred it to her.   She promptly turned and ran up the mountainside and over the hill with the lunch in her mouth.  I was surprised when she quickly returned and then it dawned on both Heather and I --- those kits were not dinner for the badger. 

 They had been moved one more time and these two foxes were making sure that old badger did not upset their housekeeping one more time.   Mama Fox was making sure they were being fed as well.

Fox B guarding the den where the badger was staying.

I could have stayed there all day, but Heather needed a chance to see a little more during her two day stay with us, so we moved around the corner where we found a little herd of mountain goats on one side of the road, as well as this little family of deer:

 One comment before we go on.
A is, apparently, for AMATEUR, too, as in my photography.  All of those Badger/Fox photos should have been sharp as could be.  But when I got done with taking the photos and looked at my camera, I realized I had changed to manual settings to take the photo of the geese and forgot to change it back.   So sad.  So many photos I did not get correctly.

On up the road, in the LaMar River Canyon, we found another jam of people.  This is what they were looking at:

 A nest of Ospreys, along with one flying below.  It was beautiful, and huge!

 Finally we made it into LaMar Valley where meadows covered the ground for as far as the eye could see, and the Buffalo roamed and the deer and the ANTELOPE played.

 Along with ground squirrels

 and Coyote

 and wolves, but we didn't see the wolves.

We headed back towards the Condo, because there were still a few things we needed to do to get ready to go home, but on the way back we found another bear jam (daily occurrence) at Elk Creek (west of Roosevelt, near the Petrified Tree).   I swear whomever first sees these bears must have bionic eyes, because they just blend so well with the tree roots...

We watched this guy for quite a while before he finally lumbered over the hill out of site.  Such a beautiful animal!

After a stop in Mammoth for lunch, we took a little stop at Swan Lake, hoping to see the moose again, but things were pretty quiet.

 We were so happy to have Heather join us at least.  Wished all the kids could have been there.  It was a very fun week!

On Sunday, I twisted Brent's arm into taking the Mesa Falls Scenic Drive home.  I've wanted to go on that drive for a long time.  He didn't want to go but was willing to do it for me.  Isn't that sweet?

This is what we saw:

 The Tetons making an impressive backdrop for a forest photo through the windshield.

 A pretty mourning cloak butterfly, which I have never seen before.

 The brink of the Upper Mesa Falls - not quite Niagara, but impressive nonetheless.

 I included this photo above, which is similar to the one below, simply so you could get an idea of the size of these falls.  We had gone up the path a little ways, and if you look for the pink shirted lady in the right corner of the falls, you will see where we were standing when I took the photo above of Heather.   See how tiny those people are?  Yeah, that's how big those falls are.

 Brent and Heather and Upper Mesa Falls

Now, I have to warn you about the next photo.  It will make you go, eeyuuuayuck....

Was I right?   What are those?   I've never seen them before and there were little pouches on a lot of the trees just like this.  Upon closer inspection I realized those were not spider webs, but the web of a Western Web Caterpillar at work here. 

 Here's a happier photo to get your mind off the caterpillar one.  These are the kind of trees the webs were found in.

 On down the road was the Lower Mesa Falls.   Wow - all that water converging into the same location!  Quite interesting!

And then we were down off the forest, off the calderas, off the Rockys and into the valleys headed toward Ashton.   Does this look like a computer generated scene to you?  Yeah, it does to me, too.  But I guarantee it is real.   Beautiful country on our way home from Yellowstone.

 Bye until next year....