Yellowstone National Park released that it hosted 454,929 visits in May 2023. While down from 2022 that’s still a lot of people coming into Yellowstone. At the same time Yellowstone visitors have received a lot of negative attention for various reasons but largely for harassing wildlife. And while these incidents are disturbing they are not the norm but rather isolated actions of a very small minority of park visitors. Over the years I’ve certainly seen people doing things they shouldn’t and those things tend to stand out. But I’ve also seen the significant majority of people behaving perfectly fine. I’ve had several book signings in Yellowstone already this summer and have had a chance to meet hundreds of people from all over the world and they all have something in common. They want to come to the most spectacular place in the world and are excited to see geysers, mountains, and wildlife. Even those of us who live here now, in some cases for many years, were once tourists with little information about Yellowstone. Yellowstone is one of the most incredible places on earth and it draws people from all walks of life from all over. While a few bad apples get the attention, the vast majority of visitors appreciate where they are and what they’re seeing.

Is this not the cutest bird face ever? It’s pretty fun when the swallows migrate back for the summer as they often flock in large numbers and with several species present. I counted five different species as I watched and photographed the flock catching insects along the shore of a nearby lake. They would often perch on whatever they could find before flying out to hunt again. This is a Violet-Green Swallow and, at a distance, can be confused with a Tree Swallow as they both appear to be greenish and white. But the Violet-Green Swallow has some very distinctive coloration as it’s name implies and I’ll post another photo later showing the beautiful colors of this species. But for now, this face was just too cute not to share.

A different morning and different mountain goats from my post on Sunday. The photo I shared then was from a morning when I found four billies together. On the morning I found these three, they were a part of a small group consisting of three nannies, a kid born last year, and a couple of subadult goats. I think one of the fun things about nature photography is that you never know what you’re going to find. Every day is special and new and every encounter is unique. The two youngsters in this photo were jostling about while poor mom was just trying to sit and relax. Does that sound familiar to any moms out there?

When I first became interested in photography back in the 90’s, waterfalls were often my subject of choice. It was a good subject matter to learn photography because the slow shutter speeds necessary to get the water to look like this required a tripod. That meant I slowed down and studied my subject and paid attention to what I was doing. I don’t photograph waterfalls as often as I used to but they’re still one of my favorite subjects, especially when the sky adds a beautiful element to the image.

Mountain goats tend to live in the most beautiful places. They call the highest peaks their home and rely on steep cliffs, which they traverse with ease, for safety and protection from predators. While I didn’t find any baby goats on my recent travels into the high country, I did find this cooperative youngster who provided me some poses with some nice light and breathtaking backdrops. It’s hard to really ask for anything more.

This week it was the elk that provided a nice scenic photo opportunity for me. This cow elk was grazing near the road in Yellowstone and a pullout provided me a direct view of Electric Peak for a background. I wasn’t fortunate enough to have an elk calf with mom but that just leaves something to try for next time. I stayed in my car so as to not spook the elk, though the speeding traffic certainly kept getting her attention. She eventually crossed the road and headed towards the trees but not before I was able to photograph her in the gorgeous morning light. Please remember, these images are my livelihood and may not be used under any circumstances without my permission.

I’ll use my car when possible and/or necessary to remain safe. This is an image I had pre-visualized earlier this spring and waited for the conditions to come together as well as having some cooperative bison for the foreground. In order to make this work, as I shot at a relatively wide angle, compared to most of my wildlife images, I needed to remain in my car in order to not be standing unnecessarily close to the bison. I parked and waited as the bison slowly grazed and moved into the composition. Having a calf in the image was a bonus.

Thanks to a friend, I recently had the chance to see two porcupines and photograph this one. She had been seeing them regularly and took me out to look for them. This one, the larger of the two was resting up at about eye level in a pine tree. Clouds provided soft, even light, which is often necessary when photographing in the forest. We took a few photos and then left him to the solitude of the forest. While I like the above photo as it shows the porcupine’s face nicely, I added the image below to show the entire animal.

Bison are certainly one of my favorite mammals to photograph. They are survivors. They endure many difficulties. Native Americans used to run entire herds of them over “buffalo jumps” where the animals plunged to their deaths over steep cliffs. The US government slaughtered them by the thousands, if not millions. And today, they live in isolated populations where they still face the hardship of winter and slaughter. While numbers I’ve seen vary, it is estimated that somewhere around 2,000 or more bison were removed from the Yellowstone herd of approximately 6,000 animals either through capture or hunting. Even now as Yellowstone finally starts to turn green, most of the surviving herd looks like this bull with his ribs visible and hip bones protruding. Yet his strength helps him to persevere.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing mothers out there! And a very special mother’s day for my own mom who has done so much for me for so many years. And also to my wife, mother to my two wonderful children. This image was from quite a few years ago but it still is one of my all time favorites. A loud truck had just driven past as these two were grazing in a mountainside meadow and the noise startled the cub badly. Mom comforted the cub for a few minutes and they nuzzled each other’s faces. It was definitely one of my favorite Yellowstone moments.