NALT, I'd certainly rather being there mowing grass with you. But I am retired, which means training LF to be independent. So I'm out here making the most of it.
Friday June 8th:As said in the Daily thread, I caught 10 keeper-sized trout (released because it's post-1996). But I forgot to take my camera, so you'll have to trust me; they were beauties.
Also watched a mule-deer buck walk the shoreline near my car (I was out in my boat). Cool.
Then yesterday afternoon I drove to Hayden Valley in hopes of seeing a wolf. First I stopped at a site along the Yellowstone River where herons nest. I walked down through the lodgepole pines to the river's edge, set up my telescope, and found 11 nests on an island about 100m away.
But I wanted to see wolves. They most active just before dark, which come gradually here. It's not really dark until about 10pm. So at 7pm I found a parking spot neat Elk Antler Creek, and I walked out about half a mile onto a hilltop for viewing the rolling hills of an extensive plain. It's where I saw the 2 grizzlies the day before. I panned with the telescope, and after a while saw a black wolf walking along a tree line (a mile away). It soon joined a pack of 7 others. WOW! As I watched they tumbled in the grass and played, then ran (in a line) across the prairie and were gone. I took video, which is easier to see. But here's the best I could do with a hand-held cell phone against the telescope eyepiece.
Here you can see most of them spread in a line. About half of them are gray; the others black. Some appear bicolored, but that's the sunshine only illuminating part of the wolf. Some of the gray ones appear dark here, because the sun is behind them (silhouettes).
Here they are running left across the prairie. A black one is leading (far left). Just like dogs, they were playing and rolling on the grass.