Spring Has Sprung (Almost)

Spring seems like it has finally arrived, but most likely not for long. We have a had a couple of days in the sixties. That is supposed to change on Wednesday, though, with the possibility of snow over the next few days. Some flowers have started to appear around the house. The following picture is from Sunday; just a little messing around...



Oh, if you happen to know what flower this is please shoot me an e-mail. Thanks.

Yellowstone

Last weekend the majority of the roads opened in Yellowstone. The south entrance is not open yet, so on Friday I drove to West Yellowstone to get into the park. My hope was to see some recently emerged bears. I didn't, unfortunately, but I think it may be a little early as there is still lots of snow in most parts of the park. So no bears, but I did have my first close encounter of the 'wolf' kind. It was brief, but exciting nonetheless. The pictures I took of the wolves aren't any good, but I thought I'd share them anyways.

Grizzlies

So today was a good day. Instead of sitting in the office on a beautiful day, I spent the whole afternoon up in the park shooting Grizzly Bears. This is bear 399, who is well known in GTNP. 399 and her three cubs most likely emerged from their den a couple of days ago. This is the second winter the cubs spent with her, so they will soon be leaving to go on their own. It is astonishing to see the difference in their size from a week before entering the den in the fall, to their current size less then a week after leaving the den. Hopefully I will be seeing a lot more of them in the coming months.