Jackson Hole Wildlife Photos - Spring 2011

Hi, all.

I'm putting up a bunch of photos I've been taking in the backyard this spring.  

We live near the Snake River with access to a pretty large private property that adjoins the river.  I did a lot of cross-crounty skiing along the river this winter and I've been walking out almost daily to "maintain terrain familiarity (as the JH Ski Patrol would say).  

These are just photos of some of the critters I've seen in the past few months...

This is an osprey on April 5.  The ospreys migrate south from Jackson in the early fall and always reappear almost exactly on the first of April.  It amazes me that they're so punctual because in some years spring is in full bloom in the valley well before they get here and other years (like this one) it's snowy and cold and rainy for weeks and it seems like they would starve to death.  In any case, it's always fun to start watching for them on all the nests around the valley.

This is a young moose grazing on willow bushes along the river on March 23.  

These are two elk running along the river bottom on March 28.  Most of our "neighborhood" elk spend the winter in a State of Wyoming-run feedground on the other side of the river about six miles south of us.  Once the snow in the valley starts to diminsh, they move out of the feedground and spread up and down the river valley.  Once the snow in the mountains starts to melt (who knows WHEN that's going to happen this year), a good share of the elk move up into the mountains flanking the valley.  For about a six-week period from March to May, though, we see lots of them in the yard at home.  The elk behind in this picture has been fitted with a radio-tracking collar.

This is a mating pair of bald eagles perched in a cottonwood tree not far from their nest.  Some of the eagles spend the winter here in Jackson Hole, but I'm fairly sure this pair had migrated somewhere because they just showed up around the second week of April.

This is a pelican swimming in the Snake River on April 15.  I think that growth on his (her?) bill has something to do with mating as you don't see those later in the year.  As an avid fisherman, I'm not horribly fond of pelicans because they consume mass quantities of trout.  I would sort of prefer that they didn't show up every year, but they do.

This is a mother moose and her "baby".  The young one is probably a yearling born in 2010.  The youngsters stay with mom until just before she has the next calf, which is sometimes one year and sometimes two.  While the calf is still with the mother, you almost never see them more than a few yards apart.

More to come when I get a little more editing done.

In case you're wondering, I'm posting these here on Epic because it's actually easier to put them here first and cut-and-paste to my company website than it is to put them on the website first.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stranger   

 

Do you have goats in the Tetons?  Don't remember hearing about them there.

Technically, we don't have mountain goats in the *TETONS* (at least I've never seen any), but we do have them within a 45-minute drive from Jackson.  As far as the maps are concerned, the Teton Range stops at Teton Pass.  The ridgeline going south from Teton Pass makes up what's known as the Snake River Range.  There ARE goats in the Snake River Range, but they don't seem to have moved up into the Tetons themselves.

As you drive south from Jackson, you pass through the Snake River canyon before coming out of the canyon at Alpine, WY.  Just about a mile before you leave the canyon, there is a rocky ridgeline just to the north of the highway that almost always has goats somewhere on it during the winter.  I've seen them many times but I've never had my camera when I've seen them.

There are also bighorn sheep in both the Tetons and the Gros Ventre Range just to the east and southeast of Jackson.  We regularly see them just east of Hoback Junction during the winter.  I've never gotten a good photo of a bighorn.  They look pretty ratty this time of year and I think our local population isn't doing particularly well.

Here are a few more photos...

A couple of shots of a coyote who was very interested in what I was doing in his woods:

Some elk that happened to cross the river toward me just as I was walking by.  I had never seen elk swim before, so that was pretty cool: 

Golden eagle:

Trumpeter swan:

This is a mom and juvenile beaver on the other side of the river.  This photo was taken about a month ago and their den is about to be underwater as the runoff starts in earnest:

This is a mule deer that walked up to about 20 yards from me:

And these two young bull elk weren't any smarter:

Quote:

Originally Posted by andy4g63 

This is awesome, Bob.......

Thanks.

 

Now I will just wait for a photo of Brutus/grizzly bear,that lives with C. Anderson from Nat Geo Wild show. 

I'm sure this isn't the right bear, but what the heck... 

This guy was fishing the same stretch of salmon stream we were last summer at Painter Creek Lodge in Alaska:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finndog 

awesome, was all of this in a casual stroll around the block?  love the way the coyote's coat blends so well with the forest.

We're now living in a house that's part of a hundred-acre property that adjoins the Snake River.  For the past three months, I've been more or less walking (cross country skiing when the snow was still here) around the perimeter of the property either early in the morning or late in the evening.  It's a fairly casual stroll and I've run into nearly all those critters while doing the walk.  

Yesterday, my wife watched a moose eat all the emerging tulips that I planted about 10 feet outside the kitchen windows last fall.  She went outside to try to shoo it away and it just ignored her.  I'm going to buy her some firecrackers.  
 

Some more photos...  

The shot of the bighorn sheep was taken in Hoback Canyon about 15 miles southeast of Jackson.  The rest of the critters were here on the cottonwood farm.

Fox looking kind of thin after making it through the winter:

Bull elk that are just starting to get their antlers for this year.  The little antler nubs are in velvet:

Bighorn:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Emmett 

Cool neighbors, excluding that tulip-munching moose of course.  Any photos of the slide in Snake River Canyon, or is WYDOT keeping everyone away? 

WYDOT is keeping all traffic out of the canyon.  The slide is absolutely huge.  This photo was in yesterday's weekly paper:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pwdrhnd 

That slide looks huge!  It is going to take a while to clean that up.

Yeah.

That highway is a main commuter route between Star Valley and Jackson.  Probably a couple thousand people a day drive from Star Valley to Jackson and back for work.  With the canyon closed, their only alternative is to drive west from Alpine, WY to Swan Valley, ID, over Pine Creek Pass to Victor, ID, then over Teton Pass and down into Jackson Hole.  That adds about an hour and twenty minutes each way to the drive.

WYDOT isn't making any predictions at all about when the highway might reopen, partly because as of a day or two ago (last I heard) the slide was still moving and they were worried about safety for the crews trying to clean up.

What a mess.