Posts Tagged ‘river otters’

Yellowstone: Feeding Time 2

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

This time around we watched an otter hunting in a river. It was at the same place where we had spotted the otter trio except at the first otter lodge. The otter was bobbing up and down in the water trying to get some food.

There was a whole line of photographers trying to get good pictures of it,I was just one of about ten trying to score a shot. I got to talk with a man who took photography trips to Africa. He had photographed, lions, elephants and much more. It was amazing to listen to his adventures while we waited for the otter to catch something.

The funniest part is that whenever the otter would pop up there would be a storm of camera clicks. All you could hear was people frantically pushing the button to take a photo, desperately trying to catch something interesting.

He was teasing us with his presence. He would go under and swim to one end of the river. Wait there until we all picked up our gear and walked over. As soon as we got there he would swim back upstream. We chased him around for quite some time.

We finally got our wish when the little guy popped out of the water with a Cutthroat Trout in his mouth. The whole energy fo the area was abuzz as people tried to get good pictures of it.

He was just chomping away on this fish. He was really enjoying it, for most of the time he had his eyes closed as he was eating. He, unlike the coyote, didn’t play with it, he chewed on it for a tiny bit, then swallowed it.

He almost swallowed the fish whole. It was pretty amazing. As soon as he was done, he went back to his fishing and swimming. He just slinked away in search for his next meal.

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Yellowstone: The Trees

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

When I was in Yellowstone, I saw some of the most beautiful scenery in my whole life. Valleys of snow and brush, trees lit by fading sunlight, and the bluest sky you will ever know. Montana is called big sky country for a reason (yes I know Yellowstone is Wyoming but we stayed in Montana). This tree was so pretty even though it was barren, the sunset hit it in a beautiful light making something dead look beautiful beyond words. I wish this photo could have captured it better but here it is anyway.

This is  a grove of trees we camped out near when we were waiting to see the river otters. It was so cool and a bunch of the trees had been knocked over by beavers or almost gnawed down. Very interesting.

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Yellowstone: River Otters

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

I had never seen a river otter before I went to Yellowstone, and let me say

THEY ARE ADORABLE

We heard that at the confluence of the Lamar River and the Soda Butte River in Lamar Valley, Yellowstone there were some otter lodges. So we all hiked out of the car dragging our giant cameras and all the equipment out of the car and then walked a half mile to the second otter lodge along the river. We set up the tripods and waited for quite some time when we finally spotted one otter. He was bobbing in and out of the water regularly teasing us with his appearance as we tried to catch a good picture of him. We were about to head back in when Mark turned around and saw the three otters playing.

Keep in mind we can’t exactly yell at each other to tell us that the otters were right behind me and I hadn’t noticed; so there was a lot of frantic gestures and quiet yelling. Not to mention as we ran in the snow with our equipment to relocate in a better spot for the magnificent otter trio. It was quiet the mad dash.

They were rolling around on their backs, sliding in and out of the water just having a good time. They were climbing all over each other, this picture captures some of the playful spirit I got to witness from these little creatures. They really look a lot like little Loch Ness monsters as they crane their necks out of the water, it is really funny to watch especially because of their whiskers.

It really was an amazing experience watching these guys play around. We wanted to let them have their fun and not disturb them so after they crawled back into their lodges we left them behind with a very satisfied day behind us.

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