Web-cam mania returns

It' been a while since I posted Web cam captures from my favorite place on earth, the greater Yellowstone area. But this is "shoulder season" again, after the interior roads close to traffic, snowmobile and snow-coach season haven't yet started, and the village at Old Faithful is inhabited only by a small maintenance crew, the crowds of summer and winter not in evidence.

In this morning's pretty frosty light we had a few bison come by to nibble where the hot ground around Old Faithful geyser is laid bare by the heat just under the surface.

 In this Thanksgiving's fading light, a little coyote trotted in front of the Web cam.

I myself will be in Yellowstone again in just exactly two months from now. I won't be going to Old Faithful, which can only be accessed by snow-mobile or snow-coach, though I will take a trip to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone by snow-coach, a new winter experience for me.  There will be lots of wildlife to see--bison, elk, snow shoe hares, foxes, eagles, swans, bighorn sheep, and the extraordinary scenery transformed by winter. I can hardly wait!

Web cam happiness

Here are two avian captures from the Henry's Fork Web cam (Island Park, Idaho); the silhouette heron is from this morning, at a time of day at a time of year when the angle of the sun makes oblivious all fine details, yet the bird is so distinct that it's identifiable, and another caught in late June of this year (the bird is most likely a starling or other member of the black bird family) when the sun reveals all the local glory in the cam's sight. Once in a while someone catches sight of a moose on the cam. I keep trying!

Web cam updates

Click on photo to enlarge for detail

I'm an addict of web cams, at least those pointed at various wonderful subjects in the greater Yellowstone area, which I check multiple times every day. It's been a few months since I posted favorite or interesting cam captures - one reason is that just a month ago KLK and I returned from another great adventure in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, with a 36-hour side trip to Cody, Wyoming, so stay tuned for upcoming posts about that wonderful trip. 

Meanwhile, here's a picture taken from one of the two cams atop Mount Washburn where they are housed in the lookout and used to survey their respective domains for signs of wild fire. In the lower left corner is a good-sized herd of bighorn sheep, all, as far as  I can tell, ewes with lambs. On close inspection, it seems the big-curl rams are spending the summer in bachelor parties elsewhere. There are also a couple of hikers along the trail.

We have hiked to the top of Washburn several times, but it wasn't an option early this June. I took the photo below along the road from which both the northern and southern trails to the summit depart. Hikers are now (mid-July) to be seen on the web cam every day. 

More posts soon from Yellowstone at ground level!

I spend too much time...

Far too many hours of my life are spent staring at Web cams. Some day, when I'm retired (psst! Economy! Pick up fast, will you please?!?), I can spend my time in situ, off my behind in front of my computer and on my feet in front of the land- and wildlife-scapes I love so much. I've mentioned several of my favorite Greater Yellowstone area Web cams before: the Henry's Fork cam with its periodic moose and bird sightings; the Corwin Springs cam pointed from outside Yellowstone National Park at Electric Peak that is within its borders; and the camera in the fire lookout on top of Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone (out of commission at the moment, until the snows melt and technicians can get up up to fix it). Others I keep a sharp eye on include many in the Grand Teton area. The scenery, often dramatic with mountain weather and light, is heart-lifting; the geology-in-the-making around Yellowstone's Old Faithful (the Upper Geyser Basin) is amazing. But the opportunity to observe wildlife, sitting here in Chicago glued to my chair, is the best thrill of all, at least until I can be there in body as well as spirit. The live streaming Old Faithful-Upper Geyser Basin cam, when unattended, is pointed at (drum roll) the Old Faithful geyser scinter cone, ever ready to catch an eruption. Happily, it is occasionally attended by alert operators in Yellowstone and elsewhere in the country, who can zoom, pan and tilt it. Once in a while we get lucky, and wildlife happens by when the cam is attended; David M recently posted a few minutes of a coyote's visit. In the last few days, friends who work at the UGB report a grizzly bear hanging out. Yesterday numbers of people saw it on the live streaming cam (while I was out doing errands, drat!) and one got this still capture.

These are the quiet weeks in Yellowstone. The gates have been closed to oversnow vehicles, and deep in the interior, park and concessionaire staff are readying for opening day, when the roads (at least those at lower elevations) open to auto traffic again. My friends who live in the area are champing at the bit for the day when they can again visit the heart of their favorite place on earth, April 17 this year. I, however, love the peace of the in-between season as viewed through the cams. Humans rarely come into view once snow mobile season has ended. So what is the bear doing in this normally heavily touristed site? When grizzlies awaken from their winter snooze, they've very, very hungry. The easiest source of quick high quality nutrition is winter kill, mostly ungulates that didn't make it through the deprivations of the season, perfectly-preserved bear food thanks to persistent subfreezing temperatures. Because of the warmth of the ground and air, and thus the thin snow cover, ungulates such as bison and elk do well to spend the winters in there. In spite of the less harsh conditions in the thermal areas, though, come the end of winter there is still an attractive concentration of carrion. Some creatures just collapse from undernnutrition and exposure, and others slide into a boiling hot spring and cook to death.

Counting the days (51) until I can be there again to see for myself.

Thanks to the National Park Service for this wonderful reference photo (for the still cam).

New Web cam pleasures

Yellowstone's newest Web cam is run by the USGS Volcano Hazards Program's Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, hosted at the University of Utah and mounted on Lake Butte Overlook above Yellowstone Lake. It refreshes only once every hour - geologic time, after all - but in spite of the cage bars of burned snags between it and the considerable scenery beyond, yields wonderful information to the non-geologist. Picture # 1, a small elk herd, including a spotted calf front and center very early in the morning; picture #2, just a nice sunny view; and picture #3, what lies beyond.

Still watching those web cams!

Still catching some great sights on the Web cams around the greater Yellowstone/Grand Teton area from the confines of my desk in Chicago. This one's pointed along the Henry's Fork of the Snake River near Island Park, Idaho (Thanks, Kennewicksheri!!). 

Got swans today!

I don't know what kind they are: could be trumpeters, could be tundras, the images aren't quite clear enough. Let's hope I see them again on a clear, sunny day.

Click on the Web cam capture to get a good look at them, there's a whole flock. Or bevy. Not a wedge, though, at least not in this shot. 

Bozeman touchdown:

12 days, 15 hours, 36 minutes and 49 seconds as of this post.

I won't get near Island Park this time (though I love that area, a little to the west of Yellowstone), this time it's all about the Northern Range, with a day-trip by snow coach to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, where I've never been in winter.

Nature and Sanity: What the Web Has Done for Me

I haven't posted in a while because I've been 100 per cent immersed in preparing a grant application that in the end proved to be 473 pages long. It contained 40 pages of budget spreadsheets, commensurately more pages of narrative budget justification, one general introduction, research plans for four cores and four scientific projects, tables, biographical sketches for the major participants, and numerous other obligatory pieces of paper that all had to relate to one another accurately in order for our request for $8.8 million to be considered, much less funded. Multiple copies of application were shipped to the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging on January 25, one month to the day after Christmas. A 1,000 lb weight was lifted from my (and several other people's) shoulders, though in my gut I fear I made some error severe enough to again sink my spirits when it is uncovered and, worst-case, scuttle the entire enterprise. The latter is unlikely, but it's what I'm paid to worry about.

I spent my days at a computer. Except for interpersonal relationships and a few old hard-copy files, the computer is my only tool at the office. Since Christmas the hours spent at a computer working on the application are practically uncounted. While I can focus - get in a zone and flow with Csikszentmihalyi - for long periods of time, my Sesame Street-like brain needs distraction too. The invention and continuous improvements to Web cams and their proliferation in interesting places, especially interesting places very dear to me, has saved my mental health. A new favorite is focused over the Yellowstone River to Electric Peak beyond, just north of Yellowstone National Park. On days like today, it takes my breath away. There is activity - changing light, moving trains, flowing water, ice patches that come and go - in the spring there will be buds and green, in the summer fishermen and in the fall, drinking wildlife, to remind me of things bigger and older than myself. The Yellowstone is free-flowing here, unchanneled and undammed by man. The recently mounted Web cam pointed to Old Faithful and additional important thermal features of Yellowstone's Upper Geyser Basin also thrills when Old Faithful, Beehive, or Giant geyser erupt, when herds of elk or bison wander by oblivious to the optics aimed at them, and when people (also mostly oblivious) gather to see Old Faithful do its thing. What a sheer joy, what a lift away from my chair, what a reminder of the sanity of Nature the cams are.

The seasons, they are a'changin'

 

I'm a person of some very regular habits. Year in and year out, for almost 20 years, at 5:30 AM weekdays I go for a 2.5 mile constitutional along the shores of Lake Michigan, with its unobstructed view of the eastern horizon. Then, at the end of the work day three days a week, I go to a Jazzercise class that gets out at 7:40. These by-the-clock habits make me very aware of the minute changes in the tilting of the earth, first to and then away from the sun, and back again. More so, I think, than those who suddenly bemoan the shortening days and celebrate the last day an overcoat is needed to go outdoors each spring.

Above are two captures from the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory's web cam pointed over Yellowstone Lake. The cam refreshes at two minutes past the hour every daylight hour. The top photo was nabbed only 44 days ago - July 29 - and miraculously caught a sleek cow elk gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. The second capture was from this morning, at the same early hour. The camera is pointed west-northwest, the pretty orange glow at the horizon is simply reflecting the predawn light from behind the observer. 

I love the transition between seasons and all its promise of change to come. Chicago's 2010 summer was hot, sultry, and not much enjoyable to those of us sensitive to high humidity. Starting around September 1st, the daily humidities and temperatures moderated, and since Labor Day we've had many lovely days with clear skies and California-coast-like temperatures in the high 70s, and a few overnights that dropped into the high 50s. I don't need to tell you that this is fabulous sleeping weather, with the windows open a couple of inches and a light cover to snuggle in. 

But I commented to my walking companion the other day, in spite of the couple of nippy mornings we've experienced, I still haven't been moved to think, "hmm, feels like Fall's in the air!"  This in spite of the fact that it is completely dark when we head out for our trek these days, and the sun has not yet bobbed up over the eastern edge of Lake Michigan by the time we leave the lakefront 50 minutes later. 

I'll know it's here when: I close all but one window at night; I switch from my yummy iced coffee to hot coffee in the morning; I terminate the liberation of my toes and give up sandals in favor of closed shoes for the duration. I love Fall, and I still look ahead with happy anticipation to Winter. I love the change of seasons.

(As always, do please click on the photos to appreciate the details.)

Amrchair Leaf-Peeping

Great shot of Electric Peak (within Yellowstone National Park) from the Web cam at Corwin Springs (a few miles north of the Park) this morning. It's absolutely wonderful to see abundant snow on its heights relatively early in the season. The thermometer on the Web page from which this was taken says it's 35^o F this morning. Compare this photo to these I collected last summer during the height of fire season. Any wonder I'm thrilled?
The 4-legged beast in the distance is a cow or horse, not, alas, wildlife.

Yellowstone goes seasonal, too

My poor brain is spread too thin among too many projects and happenings, both at work and at home at the moment, so I've not been at all diligent about recording thoughts and deeds lately. The good news is, when all else fails, there are always Web cam captures. This is this morning's view from Lake Butte Overlook in Yellowstone (in the dark distance is Yellowstone Lake with some of the park's iconic mountains hidden in the fog beyond) with a couple of elk cows resting in the newly-laid snow.

Here is a harem of elk cows, and one bull with a pretty good-sized rack at Mammoth Hot Springs (much lower in elevation than Lake Butte, thus snow comes here later in the season). The full swing of the annual elk rut is probably just winding down now, but the bulls still consider themselves to be in charge. Of everything.

And here, the clouds parted on top of Mt. Washburn after the first significant snow storm this autumn, to reveal "ghost trees" encased in the white stuff:

And, happily, we still have blue herons regularly visiting Henry's Fork of the Snake River

Enjoy!

God, and the Friendly Skies, willing...

Tomorrow we leave for a short, intense trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. Our first night will be in Chico Hot Springs Resort and Spa, in the highly irrigated Paradise Valley due north of Yellowstone's North Entrance. It's most certainly one of the prettiest spots on the face of the earth (and Chico's is consistently one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten in, by the way). Compare the photo of the irrigated greensward along the approach to the resort with the photo taken exactly two years ago of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone. The lump to the left of the road is Soda Butte Cone, an active thermal feature out there all by itself, relatively far away from any other thermal activity.
Note, of course, the color of the brush, mostly sage and forbs, (only a little actually qualifies as grass.) This is what Nature looks like at the end of a long, hot, dry summer. The fires creating the choking ash and smoke of the Web cam captures, below, have been quenched, and primarily through soaking rains rather than fire-fighting efforts, though some are still smoldering in places, and some small new ones have started. In spite of what some pundits claim, that the fires are due to chronic "mismanagement" of the forests, in truth their occurrence cannot be 100% managed. They are, and always have been, part and parcel of Mother Nature. We only hope they contain themselves to uninhabited areas and don't endanger lives or property.

Trip report to follow in a couple of weeks!!

I finally got my moose!

Left click on the photos to enlarge them for a good look. That dot on the distant shore is a moose. I watched it moving around for 10 or 15 minutes. Now if it would just come to the near shore...

And here's a two-fer!

Check it out for yourself, you never know what you might see on the Henry's Fork Web cam.
I will be on my way there in just 6 weeks!!

Winter Coyote

I've often mentioned how much enjoyment I get from watching various Web cams pointed at the Grand Tetons and different landmarks in and around Yellowstone National Park (turn on sound if you're interested in the narrative) sitting far away at my computer in Chicago. I may have neglected to mention that there is also a live real-time cam overlooking the Upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone, where the still cam points at Old Faithful geyser. The nice thing about the live streaming cam is that it is occasionally attended by folks who are fascinated by the multitudinous activities taking place there. They can pan and zoom, and for my thermal feature-addicted friends, focus in on whatever geyser or hot spring within view (Old Faithful, Beehive, Lion, many others) happens to be doing something hydrothermally interesting at any given moment. Besides being enormous draws for two-legged animals, lots of wildlife spends the cold, snowy winter months in the thermal basins to benefit from the warmth and resulting thin snow cover; bison and elk often appear; on very, very rare occasions during the shoulder seasons when there are few people around, a grizzly will sashay past the camera. More often, we see coyotes. My thanks to David M for following and recording this guy, in his gorgeous winter pelt, a couple of days ago.

Sometimes it's not how much you look...

...but when you look. These guys (actually, they look like bison cows, not bull guys) wandered in front of the Web cam at Mammoth Hot Springs this morning and were gone within two one-minute refreshes of the images. It was awfully nice to see them anyway!

And finally, today...

Today the gunk on the window in front of the Mt. Washburn lookout tower Web cam has melted in the bright sunshine (except for just a little on the left) and the clouds have parted and the angle of the sun shows the Grand Tetons in wonderful silhouette. How lovely is that?

Snow up to...wow!

Everybody knows I love watching Yellowstone Web cams. Here's a favorite, mounted on Lake Butte, high above Yellowstone Lake, by the University of Utah's Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (funded by the US Geological Survey). The "capture" of the elk (the rest of her herd was there too) dates from July of 2010; the little critter on top of the snow, which is apparently deeper than the elk is tall, dates from mid-March of 2011. It's a little ermine, or a long-tailed weasel, in winter white -- what wonderful happenstance he ran in front of the camera to be recorded for posterity. After nearly 20 years of drought, Yellowstone had a most wonderfully snowy winter in 2010-11. Let's hope it marks the beginning of a return to normal moisture levels -- or if not "normal" whatever that is, then wetness at the high end of average. If all the snow melts gradually, it will seep into the soils and keep the trees, forbs and grasses hydrated throughout fire season, providing abundant forage for Yellowstone's hooved herds -- bison, elk, mule deer, moose, and pronghorn antelope -- so they can fatten up and better withstand the next winter of deep, long snows.

The "volcano" cam image is refreshed once hourly for public enjoyment on the Web, but for research on changes in the profile of the land it updates continuously. The sweet sleek elk cow and her herd (unlike the ermine) apparently noticed the camera and one of them decided to investigate. Here's the footage, posted by the USGS, titled, Elk Licked My Webcam. Hilarious!
(Even better with your sound turned on.)