01 June 2002 - Saturday

After lunch, Bruce and Geri from Washington and Carlene and I headed into the park for a trip to Yellowstone Lake. We saw elk and bison on our drive to Mammoth. We checked out Swan Lake Flats for the grizzly bear that had been frequenting the area. We did not have any success finding the bear, but the scenery in the flats was just great.

Some friends had told us about watching four beavers in the Obsidian Creek at the Moose Exhibit area. We stopped and were surprised to see the creek was running clear. All the rivers and creeks in the north and northeast area of the park are very high and muddy. We saw some great wildflowers along the creek. We also saw minnows and skippers in or on the creek.

We found a bank den, but had no luck finding any beaver. Just the wrong timing this trip. We will be back and see if we can find then another day. We loaded up and headed south to Norris.

Obsidian and her cubs were not to be found as we drove from Roaring Mountain to Norris. We kept our eyes peeled because Bruce and Geri had never had the good fortune to see these grizzly bears.

We took a short break at Norris and then headed east to Canyon. We were again surprised to see the creeks, rivers and streams running clear. There were ducks on the Yellowstone and we were also on the lookout for otters and beaver in Hayden Valley. We ended up beaver and otterless but we did see bison and elk. We think that Geri almost spotted a gray wolf, but the jury is still out on that one!

At a pullout just south of LeHardy Rapids we saw some white on the water and knew we had found pelicans. We unloaded and took our binocs and camera gear down to the Yellowstone River edge. There must of been close to 30 pelicans on the little island by the rivers edge just opposite from the area we were watching.

The majority of the pelicans stayed on the island and squawking and preened. There was another group of about a dozen that swam downstream and fished along the way. After about eight minutes of so, they would fly back, land and start the downstream trip over again. They were continually making this trip and it was fun to watch them float away and beautiful to watch them fly back and ever so gracefully glide and land on the water. They are not the most graceful looking bird on the water, but it is hard to find another bird and lands on water with such gracefulness.

We watched and took pictures for almost an hour before we headed south to Fishing Bridge for ice cream. It was the only way we could keep Bruce and Geri under control. Man, talk about can I drive, are we there yet, I have to go potty, she is looking at me or touching me... kids, what can you do! Ha!

Roger and Carol, our friends from Florida were just coming out of the Hamilton Store when we pulled up. He had been fishing the Firehole and caught a couple trout but said it was pretty slow right now. They were headed to Cody for supper and then back to West Yellowstone.

Some other friends from Florida, Bill Huggins and his wife are working at Fishing Bridge. We have been keeping in touch via email for a few years. We were able to finally meet face to face and visit with each other. He had seen about 48 bears so far this spring and things were going well. We had a nice chat and it is nice to finally put a face and personality to an email.

We tried our best to view some cutthroat trout from Fishing Bridge, but the wind had kicked the water up too much and it was too murky. We loaded up and headed north to Canyon and then up and over Dunraven and Mount Washburn. We saw elk and buffalo on the down side of Washburn, but no bears or wolves.

Just after Tower at a turnout just before the Calcite overlook we pulled in so Bruce and Geri could show us an osprey nest with eggs. The osprey had two eggs and the mom or dad got up and turned the eggs as we were watching. A few other folks stopped to see what we were watching and got to enjoy the view. The osprey are doing well so far this year and we hope that they all have chicks as their numbers grow in the park.

While bear watching along the way, we slowly drove from Tower to Mammoth. We did not see any bears between Tower and Roosevelt and we were probably the only ones who did not see any black bears today. The black bears have really been visible from the Roosevelt and Yellowstone River Bridge to Tower. It has been an exceptional spring for watching black bears and cubs so far this spring.

We arrived home and had a barbecue and just enjoyed the time together. Another great day in Parkadise.