We had another "beary" good day in Yellowstone today!

Honestly, I have so much to report from today, I don't have the time to write it all tonight.

We left at 5:15 am with 4 MPEG members following us. Some beautiful fog and a spectacular sunrise greeted us in Yellowstone today. We went through Hayden Valley at 6:14am....it was foggy and nothing significant found. We cruised Sedge and Mary Bay, found no bears and turned around (one car following us went up ahead and came across a Grizzly boar about .25 mile ahead, they tried to radio us but we didn't get the radio transmission) and we headed to the Fishing Bridge area.  We came across a grizzly grazing back in a meadow but back-lit. We drove down a ways anticipating him coming out in the clearing. At that point, another photog across the street signaled us and said there was ANOTHER grizzly across the street! This was "Hobo" as they call him. We photographed him in great morning light. Meanwhile, the other Grizz walked right passed us on the other side of the road and only one person saw him pass by and took a photograph. We were concentrating on "hobo".  We spent an hour or so with him then back to Hayden (cow elk carcass with wolves about 1 mile out), on to Swan Lake flats around 9am (no Grizz but we learn later, she showed up at 11am) then to Mammoth where a black bear and a cub had taken an elk calf a few hours before. I have a funny feeling it was that calf born yesterday.

Through Lamar.. quiet... coming back to Tower, found a black bear by the YPA bridge. He was foraging for food. We pulled over, I snapped a few pics and saw he was walking up the path on the hill and figured this event was over and suddenly a marmot (from under some brush ) ran away with the bear in hot pursuit! (see blog post image). It was amazing action. The marmot escaped this time. Tower to Canyon was yet another bear but it was "big bear jam" and we didn't stop. We had a quick lunch at Canyon then visited Artist Point, photographed the Canyon/Lower Falls in great overcast light. We drove out to the YNP East Entrance looking for Big Horns and Moose. We even drove outside the Park and found nothing.

Back to Hayden... decided to try and get closer to the wolves on the carcass. I had to use the 500 with 2x TC.. while back there we saw 3 bald eagles, one bald eagle fighting with some ravens, 3 cow elk and calves with pictures of the mom and baby nose to nose..... What amazed all of us is all the wildlife action we saw a couple of hundred yards off the road. ALL of this you would NOT be able to see from the road. 

The moral of the story is that when you are "cruising" Yellowstone looking for wildlife action, just because you don't "see it" from the road doesn't mean it's not going on!  IMHO, there is no such thing as Yellowstone being "quiet", slow or  dead". The action is going on, you just aren't seeing "behind the scenes".

This is a quick and brief summary of today. Tomorrow is the last day of the Groupshoot. We are planning a 5:00 am departure and finish this Groupshoot strong! We will be having a Group dinner tomorrow night to recap our amazing week. Perfect weather all week with tomorrow's forecast being, you guessed it... SUNNY!

Stay Tuned for Day 7 (final day).

Mark

PS: One of our members (who has never visited Yellowstone until now) had a surreal event happened to him today. He witnessed an elk calf being taken by a grizzly in a split second as he and another photog were talking. The other photog photographed the event but our member said he was so stunned and surprised at what just happened, he "froze" and didn't take a picture of the event. You never know in Yellowstone......