Spring baby

As I was leaving this morning I happened to catch sight of my first baby bunny of the spring. This guy is obviously a few weeks old already. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of cottontails over the last two decades and I don't think I have ever seen one with a white patch on his head like this guy has!

 Even though I worry about Frank the cat being outdoors so much now that the warmer weather is here, I still enjoy seeing the occasional coyote wander through the area. This fellow strolled by a few minutes ago, causing the llamas to sound their distinctive distress call.

Our raven pair hung around most of the winter but they were much more mellow in their attitude most of the time. They even seemed to tolerate the presence of the golden eagle from time to time. All that changed a couple weeks ago when they rebuilt their nest in the same location as last year.

Mama spends all day every day sitting on the nest while papa works to bring her food. The eagle is no longer welcome in this valley!

Stone Barn

On Wednesday morning we got up a little before 4:30am and set off to meet a small group of friends in Cody. The goal was to travel into the McCullough Peaks area east of town in hopes of finding a sage grouse lek. This is the time of year when the male sage grouse perform their wonderful dance trying to impress the nearby females. I have gone "lek hunting" a number of times in the past - always with wonderful results - but this time we were skunked. Whether it was because we were too late in the day, too late in the year or because the birds in this particular lek have moved to a new spot, I don't know. 

At least it was a beautiful morning and I was able to take some nice photos of a landmark of the McCullough Peaks area. This structure is universally known as "Stone Barn". 

2 Owls

 This is a tale of two owls. Both are great horned owls but they lead very different lives. The beautiful boy in the first photo is part of the group of four birds that travels around with the raptor center associated with Buffalo Bill Historical Center. He is incredibly calm and quite unperturbed by people like me who stick a camera in his face.

The bird in the second photo is of the same type even though his coloring is very different. He is a wild bird that hangs out in a tree in downtown Powell. He was sleeping when I took his photo at mid-day but he seemed just as unconcerned to have his portrait taken.

Big Horn Sheep

 Yesterday we took a drive out the North Fork highway west of Cody to see if we could spot any big horn sheep before they headed up to higher ground for the summer months.

We saw lots of ewes and youngsters but didn't see any rams until we had turned around and were headed back toward town. Then Ken spotted a group of the big animals up on a hillside not far off the road.

The big guy on the left in the first photo appeared to be the largest in the group.

This fellow was also impressive although not as large as the first guy. This one was also obviously aware of our presence. By staying in the vehicle and shooting out the window, we were able to minimize our impact and the sheep continued grazing in place.

Morning Sun

It is not often you have the opportunity to shoot directly at the sun. This morning brought a sky full of mist that acted as a diffuser for the big light. It gave me that rare chance to aim the camera at the sun and take a picture. I will probably use this photo as my last one in the book I am publishing of  landscape photos for my Multimedia class.

This morning I shot my first official assignment for the college newspaper. I drove up to the field campus in the Beartooths and took lots of photos of the weekend Wilderness First Aid class in action.