While much of the country is under high summer temperatures, we saw snow come through yesterday. I headed out this morning and went into the high country. The dirt road I was driving eventually had foot tall snow drifts, so I finally parked and hiked the rest of the way to the summit. I had hoped to find mountain goats in the snow. While their tracks were all over, they must have bedded down somewhere. It was still a gorgeous morning.

My annual quest for baby animals had success this past week as I came across a very newborn elk calf, moose twins, and a couple of mountain goat kids. The elk calf was so new that it could barely walk and it hid down in the grass as I drove by. The moose twins, while wonderful to see, were spotted at 5:40 am, so it was too dark to photograph. I hope to see some more soon though. But the mountain goat kids gave me some great photo ops, until finally the small band of goats finally bedded down. The light was low so I cranked up the ISO a bit. The adults largely still had their winter coats and were in various stages of shedding, which is always interesting.

Most mornings in the summer are bluebird clear with very little in the way of clouds. So when there’s not only clouds but also a rainbow with beautiful light, it’s pretty exciting. The morning of this photo did not disappoint as it lasted for a long while. I was able to shoot a number of compositions as I moved around and looked for different ways to photograph the mountains and rainbow, using everything from wide angle to medium telephoto.

I was finally able to get back out and look for wildlife, and great landscapes, last week but we’ve had some hot weather and that always hurts wildlife viewing. I photographed this cow moose in a stand of aspens before things greened up. Her yearling was a short distance from her when I made this image. I’ve been seeing plenty of elk, deer, and pronghorn early in the mornings (not in Yellowstone), but no young yet though there are certainly some out there.

I went out about a month ago trying to get an early start on searching for moose calves. While I saw many moose that morning, it was still early for babies and I ultimately headed to an area frequented by short-eared owls. While I’ve seen them consistently over the years unfortunately the last couple summers I was not successful finding them. That changed last month when I saw one, so when I went out looking for moose calves again this week with no luck, I headed back to see if the shorties stayed. Sure enough I found a pair and this one sat long enough on the sagebrush for me to get a few photos.

So I’m back again after largely taking the winter off from photography. I had my first book and print signing of the summer last week and it went really well. It feels good to be back at the Old Faithful Inn as well as out photographing. In my opinion, this image reflects Yellowstone well; so much of what you see is due to volcanic activity, from the steam rising from the geysers to the left, to the colorful bacteria growing in the warm water from the hot spring behind, even to the distant cliffs composed of rhyolite.