As members of the Corvid family, they are highly intelligent, and these guys can even mimic human speech. We’d seen several by now, but this is the first chance I had to get pictures. The young ones are so adorable – clumsily exploring everything, learning the ways of the world, and calling back and forth to their parents for reassurance.
They have a striking appearance and seem to chatter almost constantly. They are so full of life and vigor; it makes me smile every time I see or hear one! I got several pictures of one of the “babies” with mom or dad, as well as video of him.
On our way through the park, we found this big guy by himself in a parking lot, allowing us to safely get close-ups of him.
This area with several hot springs and geysers was a popular spot, nicely situated with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop.
Steamboat Geyser is the world’s tallest active geyser, reaching heights of 300 feet at times!
Further down the road was a herd of bison, creating one of the famous “buffalo jams” so common inside Yellowstone. I got some video of the careless offenders (you can click here to view it if it’s not showing up for you).
This particular traffic jam was at least six miles long in the opposite direction! Luckily we were close to the front of the line in our direction. Here is traffic still backed up about 5 miles down the road from the beginning of their line.
One of our main events for the day was the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center just outside the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park. We’ve known about this place for a while, and it was a definite must-see. The bears there are ones that, for one reason or another, cannot be in the wild.
This is now their permanent residence, and they are well cared for. The bears are rotated on a schedule to the outside area where they forage for food much like they would in the wild, and can be viewed by visitors. In between each rotation of bears, staff members scatter food throughout the outdoor enclosure under logs and rocks, making the bears work for their food and also keeping the bears interested in their environment.
This provides a more natural setting where they can do what they were born to do, and keeps them mentally stimulated.
It also seems to keep the ravens pretty happy!
The employees mingle with visitors, conversing and answering questions. The girl who came by and spoke with us was very friendly and informative, and you could tell that she really, really loves her job! She was so enthusiastic and passionate about the bears and their well-being, and this definitely made our visit that much more enjoyable.
There is a birds of prey section, which houses birds which also can no longer live in the wild, due to injuries or disabilities. There was an owl, a peregrine falcon, and two bald eagles, each of them a pleasure to see up close.
The next section is that which houses the wolves. There are three separate “packs” of wolves here. When we were there, two packs had two members that we could see, and for the third pack we only saw one member.
It was pretty much nap time for all of them.
Perhaps they were dozing after a nice meal.
This one did get up and walk around for a few minutes, and then went back to napping.
On the way toward the gift shop and exit was a display of various injured garbage containers ranging from backpacking food containers to dumpsters. As a contribution to a multi-agency program, each of them had been “tested” by the resident bears for bear-proof-ness, and had the scars to show for it. Amazingly, I somehow neglected to take any pictures of the results, but you can see them and read more about the testing on the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center’s website.
This teepee was on display, which we could walk into. It’s much larger inside than it looks from the outside.
The ability to have a fire inside for warmth makes me wonder if this would be better than camping in a tent! We purchased a couple of things at the gift shop, and then headed back into Yellowstone.
Back inside the park, we stopped to view a few hot springs, mudpots and geysers.
Finally, we made our way to Old Faithful, one of the main attractions within the park. While waiting for the next eruption, we looked around inside the visitor center which has enough informational displays that one could probably spend an hour or two reading everything. The geothermal processes which take place are fascinating, and if this sort of thing interests you, I recommend you take a look at the Hydrothermal Systems and How They Work page on the Yellowstone National Park website. When it was time to go to the viewing area, most of the seats had filled up. We still had a good viewpoint, and this little chipmunk made an appearance for us in the meantime.
I took a series of pictures; the rest are viewable in the photo album.
I did take video of Old Faithful, but these videos take forever to upload, even on a good connection. Since we are traveling, internet speeds are questionable at best, and some hotels will limit your bandwidth usage once you use a certain amount. I will write a quick post once I've been able to get the video uploaded. I will have a few other videos featured in that post, too.
We finished our day with a few more scenic photos and relaxing at the campsite. Believe it or not, I took tons more photos than are shown here. Follow this link to see the entire photo album for this day!
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