Hi everyone-

So If you have been checking in I am sure your pretty surprised that there is a new post today. Well, I have actually had a bit of time along with a reliable internet connection so I thought I better get some new images up.

I have arrived in Choteau, Montana and am spending a few days here visiting with my mom and family. It's been a bit nicer here weather wise than it was in Yellowstone but I think thats about to change. Sounds like very cold temps and snow will be arriving shortly.

So onto the images....

The first two are f the Arnica Fire in Yellowstone National Park. During my first week in the park this fore was the dominate park feature. It was putting off a huge amount of smoke, closing roads and generally screwing up travel and sleeping arrangements. As well the wild life viewing wasn't that great because it was warm and most of the animals hadn't gotten the memo that it was fall.

So I shot a lot of images of the fire. The first one was shot at night from the West Thumb area. This was the last time I was able to travel the road before it was closed for the rest of the week. This image shows the width of the fire in this area.



The next image was shot at the Fishing Bridge junction. I thought it was interesting/funny because of the message on the sign.



I have a ton of images of the fire, some of which I will post here late and also in a gallery that I will post a link to here.

So I also shot some other subjects in the park between figuring out how to get around detours and smoke. Because the road was closed between Norris and Madison I stayed on the east side of the park for the most part. One of the places I spent a lot of time was on Mount Washburn. There was a lot of Elk activity in the high mountain meadows. The bull in the image below was on the move and lookin' for love on the this morning.



Another area that I spent a lot of time was Canyon. Many hours were spent walking and waiting in the meadows in this area looking for the Great Gray Owls. Well it paid off as I was able to photograph one of three that I saw. I also recorded some of the calls the owl was making. I will post that audio later once I get home and figure out the best way to do that. The other two owls I saw within second of each other. One flew away and the other gave us every opportunity to shoot it but a comedy of errors commenced once the ranger asked us to move our vehicles 3 more inches off the road. Till the logs were run over, the tripods hit, the vehicles moved and cameras found the bird said these guys are idiots I'm out of here and off he flew into the night.

This owl was shot within minutes of the first and only time I saw him at this particular location. He was very skittish and kept his distance. I think it had a lot to do with the large amount of photographers looking through the woods over the previous few days.



Have a great day!

Hi everyone-

Greetings from Jackson, WY and Grad Teton National Park! I would like to apologize for the lack of content lately, I have had little or no access to the internet over the last few days.

One of the major reasons for that was a perfect storm of events and conditions which left me confined to a small portion of Yellowstone. I could have gotten to my other destinations but it would have involved hundreds of miles of driving.

Today's images highlight one of the major reasons I was unable to travel through the park. The Arnica fire created a bit of havoc in the park. Started by lightning back on September 13th and really coming to life on the 23rd this fire grew quite large and effected many park services and roads.

This prevented me from leaving the park on my scheduled day and heading into Jackson Hole WY. I will talk more about this fire in future posts.

These images were shot in the evening of the day when the fire really blew up. It was the start to very smokey and very dramatic conditions. More on this fire later...

Don't forget to check out the Skywatch Blog and see great skies from around the world.

Have a great day!