Monday, August 3 - Wolves, Bears and Bats

What a day! We overslept somehow after a stormy night (of course it didn’t rain the two nights we were in hotels!!) and headed out the Slough Creek Road. Two of our new friends from yesterday morning were there but only watching bison so we thought we’d head out to Blacktail Plateau. On the way we saw one of the “wolf watchers” headed back where we’d come from so we figured something must be happening. We turned around and returned to Slough Creek and there were over 20 cars now. There were 4 wolves from the Cottonwood pack just laying on a bench (and no, I don't mean a literal bench, I mean a geographic feature called a bench  :)    ).

We watched for a while and suddenly they all got up and another wolf appeared. Shortly thereafter Rick McIntyre told everyone to be quiet…they were howling! FINALLY, I got to hear wild wolves howl! I got tears in my eyes…it is such a soul-moving sound. I hear them howl at the Wildlife Science Center frequently but it just isn’t the same.

Then it got better…they all were excited, playful – it was a pre-hunt rally. Then they took off across the bench and up a drainage. Suddenly someone spotted an elk and calf up the drainage. The wolves moved up; the cow and calf saw or smelled them and froze. The wolves split up…two went up and above, one off to the right on a rock and got down on her belly, and a black stayed below her. The elk were still frozen but suddenly they took off and the chase was on. They separated the calf from the cow and chased it down behind a rock where we could not follow. We watched for a long time but they never reappeared. The cow emerged from the woods but very high, looking down behind the knoll. She stood there for a very long time and one of our new friends said he’s seen them stand there for two days. Two days! It was very hard to watch, but on the other hand, the wolves need to eat. It’s the circle of life.

We all moved down into Little America to find a different vantage point. We saw them far off near what must have been the actual kill site. Two more wolves had joined them so we think we saw the entire Cottonwood Pack there. They were pretty visible for a good 45 min. or more. We let a lot of people look through our scope. That is one of my favorite things in life…helping people get their first look at a wild predator. The excitement is so wonderful, whether it’s a child or an adult!  I've seen adults on the verge of tears after seeing their first wolf or grizzly - what a privilege to be a part of that.

We decided to go back to camp and make bacon and pancakes for breakfast, it was such a beautiful morning and the wolves had gone out of sight. Along the road to the campground, Rosie saw a small black bear just going over a rise. As we drove into the campground we saw our neighbors from the campsite across from us headed towards us in their car,but they turned around and backed up and followed us to our site. They got out and we soon saw why they’d returned…a black bear was in OUR site (29 for those of you who camp at Slough Creek)!

Needless to say, I was NOT going to cook bacon! I had parked on the road across from our site and got out, Rosie watched from the sun-roof. The bear was tearing into something in the sagebrush between our site and the next one. I went down to let the campground host know, because this bear has been coming through daily and they are trying to teach him not to come in the campground. The host (who had been watching wolves with us earlier) came down and parked in my site and followed the bear on foot as it meandered past our site and into the meadow that is in the center of the campground.

The campground host was waiting for the ranger to arrive. The wasn’t doing anything wrong other than being there… a bear should not be comfortable being that close to people. But she wasn’t approaching tents or trying to get people food. The ranger arrived when the bear had reached the far end of the campground. We saw her run and knew they’d used the paint ball gun (we remained at our site watching from the top of the picnic table for a better view).

But she didn’t run far and didn’t leave. Then the gun and cracker shells came out. We saw her run off and then heard 4 more shots. Despite the ranger telling people at that end of the campground to leave the area, they had not.

Apparently they had also seen the smaller black bear (the one we passed on the road on the way in) and were attempting to haze her away as well.

I boiled water for coffee and boiled eggs, I figured that was safe. We chatted with the “neighbor guys” who we’d talked to before (the ones who thought we were throwing away our tent) and I decided to go investigate what she’d been eating. I made my way through the thick sage and there was a HUGE ant hill that she had pulled up sage roots to get to.

The thousands of ants were all scurrying around moving things. The guys came over and we were discussing how the bear knew they were there and one of them said they have a citronella-y smell. He caught one and held it up and they do have a faint odor. It had HUGE mandibles! We walked back by our tent and suddenly I felt a bite on my leg and after I swatted at it, an ant fell out! Those huge mandibles hurt! Eventually (seemed like a really long time) a different ranger brought the campground host back and then parked and walked over. “I’m here for bacon!” he said! He thought I’d be ok cooking it now but at that point so much time had passed that we didn’t want to. He took my name, etc. and asked many details of what I’d seen, who was where, what the bear’s behaviour was, etc. Apparently it boded well for the bear that there was no one at that end of the campground when she arrived. But her behavior still is not natural. We had a great discussion with him about all the dumb behaviour we’ve seen (people, not bears) both in YNP and Glacier and how I think they need a test…everyone who enters the park must first pass a test proving that they understand they should NOT approach wildlife (and drag their kids with them), how many feet away to stay from animals, etc. He told us about the rangers' thought: the brain bucket. They think many people leave their brains in a bucket at the entrance station. People who are usually sensible and intelligent elsewhere behave like they have no brain when faced with the prospect of a bison/antelope/elk/bear laying in the sage or crossing the road, etc. I love it…that’s exactly what you see over and over. I mean, the guy who dragged his 4 or 5 y.o. son out to within 15 feet of the huge buck pronghorn…he looked like a sensible person and so did his wife who stayed in the car. I almost stopped to tell her to tell him to GET AWAY but she would probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Anyway…we had a great, fun conversation with Ranger John (Murray) and then he was getting in his car to drive away and I was going to mine to move it back to our site parking spot. I saw something brown in between the hood and the bug guard where there’s a small channel. Dragonfly? Bird? BAT!?! The other campers were walking up saying “is that a bat?” I yelled to Rosie and she called (I kid you not, she really said this) “Ranger dude! My mom’s got a bat stuck in her car” and he apparently said “This place is exciting today!” as he went to get gloves. Just as he was doing that it finally worked it’s way out the other side. It flew around the campsite opposite us for several minutes. It was very strange and he was obviously very confused…something was not right, he shouldn’t have been out that time of day to begin with. Rabies maybe?

Bat and bear drama over, Ranger John finally got into his car to leave and we finished our brunch and coffee/hot chocolate and got ready to head over the mountains. I psyched myself up for the scary (for me) drive over Dunraven Pass to get to the Canyon area and the Hayden Valley. That is a road that goes very high and you have times you drive along the edge for a while…I don’t like it! But I went slowly and did it. We stopped for gas at the gas station at Canyon and Rosie got ice cream (huckleberry!) and we were helped by the friendliest gas station attendant ever. She obviously is happy to be working in Yellowstone!

Then we headed into Hayden Valley trying to find “grizzly overlook”.

 (We also realized today was Hayden's birthday, August 3rd...how appropriate that we were in "her" valley, that she was named for, on what would have been her 3rd birthday).

Many of the pullouts have been given names but they are unofficial and not marked. I know most of the Lamar area ones but nothing down in Hayden. We did find it though. Our reason for going there was to see the Canyon wolf pack’s rendezvous site and hopefully, of course, the wolves. There was one guy there who’d been waiting since around 8 a.m. and hadn’t seen them at all. We set up our scope and decided we’d stay until 8 pm (this was around 12:30) and not leave until then unless we saw them. We spent some nice time talking to this older man, whose wife and grandchildren were hanging out in their RV. Occasionally they’d come out but mainly it was him. Other people would come and go too. Around 2 a storm rolled in and we decided to drive down to Lake.

That took about 45 min. and when we got back just after 3 we had just missed the alpha female come up along the woods from the rendezvous site and enter the woods in a sandy spot. Darn!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was not happy.

Canyon Pack rendezvous site - center of picture in the distance, below the mountains.

We stayed looking again for a while and made a quick bathroom run around 4:30. More and more people were showing up now, some who had seen the wolves early that a.m. or in previous days and some who had just heard (like us) that this was “the place to go”. I absolutely love talking to people while wildlife watching. Sometime it’s the avid wolf-watchers who are there many days of the year and sometimes it is people who are on their first trip to YNP or Glacier and have never seen a bear or wolf. I had a great time talking with so many of them. You really start to get to know people sometimes and then it’s weird…you want to stay in touch with some of them but feel weird saying “can I have your email?”, etc. I’m going to make cards with just my name and email address to use. One woman I talked to a lot lives in Flagstaff and loves Canyon de Chelly like I do and spends a lot of time there and at Navajo Nat’l Monument. I really loved talking to someone who “gets” my passion for that area! We ended up taking her tent and money to get her our site at Slough Creek the next day when we left as she was staying way outside West Yellowstone and had no hope of arriving early enough. Her daughter is a year younger than Rosie. I hope to stay in touch with her. Then there were the two sisters from Germany that I wanted to go have cocktails with…they were hilarious…they turned up repeatedly over the course of 4 hours. There were two really nice guys who had seen the wolves early that morning and who had just come from Many Glacier and didn’t see a single Grizzly! Another guy from CA Rosie and I decided is either an athlete or actor…he had that aura and look. He had seen them the day before and had come back. It was around 7:20 and I was talking to people after we had been watching baby chipmunks. Ok, there are cute baby animals, but have you ever seen baby chipmunks? Oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are absolutely adorable. And I forgot to take a picture!  

Anyway, the actor/athlete guys was near me and suddenly said, with his binocs up, “I think…” and I said “do you have her?????!?!?!?!” and got mine over there and YESSSSS – finally! It was the alpha female and her black pup! They were over to the left of the rendezvous site and there was a small ridge there, they’d probably been behind it . How the female got back there without anyone seeing I have no idea, there must be a back way. We only had about a half hour to watch so I made sure Rosie got good scope time. She watched some great interaction with the pup licking his mom’s mouth repeatedly (hoping for regurgitation) and the mom didn’t regurgitate and was sort of biting back. The german sisters had come back from their RV and got to see them as well as some kids who had never seen a wolf. It was great, so much fun! We don’t know where the other 3 adults from the Canyon Pack were. Eventually the female (she doesn’t have a radio collar so no number) seemed to tell the pup to stay put and she started heading off to the left (west). She’d turn back, look back, head west, and turn back again. Eventually we lost her and some of us headed to a hill behind us to take a look. I was on the phone with my friend Bill and made Rosie carry the scope, not knowing how steep it was. We couldn’t see a thing up there so went down and she was NOT happy with me and thought I did it on purpose . The next pullout wasn’t any more successful. One guy and I walked out a ways to peek down at the river channel to get a better view but she was just nowhere to be found. More lightning and thunder were moving in. We finally gave up and headed back over the mountain at dusk. It was very pretty, the sunset and haze turning the sky pinkish and the mountains light blue.

You can see so many layers of mountains from up there. The few times I pulled my eyes away from the road to look, that is.

We stopped at Roosevelt to brush our teeth and wash our faces with warm water and first heard, then saw – two owls calling to each other. We’re pretty sure they were long-eared owls (like I often use for education at the Wildlife Science Center).  That was a great way to end the evening.  We listened for a while, watching them silohuetted against the sky.  They finally flew away and we headed back to our campsite in the dark.  No wolf or bear sightings on the way, unfortunately.