Holy Trout!

Gretchen, Bjorn and I went to Yellowstone Saturday with three goals: see an otter, see a moose, and see Kaila. We accomplished exactly none of those objectives. We did, however, play in the snow on Bearooth Pass, find spawning cutthroat trout, and some bears, all while being incredibly ridiculous.













A rainbow on the Wyoming side of the Pass.









































Many, many, many trout, and way too much time spent watching, harassing, and photographing them.

West Lake Fork trail

The last hike of the weekend was Sunday up the Lake Fork trail outside of Red Lodge. It got progressively colder until it started snowing!
































And awesome Birthday cupcakes by Gretchen!!

Hailstone Basin area

More birds, mostly of a predatory nature this time:












Golden Eagle


















Red tailed Hawk

















Northern Harrier


















Sharp shined Hawk


















Barn Swallow













Brown Headed Cowbird










Long Billed Curlew

Deadman's Basin

I attempted to go fishing today, but it was too windy for me to cast properly. So I wandered around and found lots of cool birds instead!











Eastern Kingbird












Western Grebe














Vesper Sparrow












Loggerhead Shrike















A Mountain Bluebird harassing some kind of black bird

















Killdeer













Yellow Headed Blackbird













American Coot












Another American Coot with chicks



















Eared Grebes

Crazy Mountains

Anne and I went camping in the Crazy Mountains and found high runoff and lots of snow left on the ground.

Beavers are larger than you'd think

And other Yellowstone River creatures and scenes...