Tag Archives: Madison river

Summer Wind

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There are portions of the Firehole river that race down from its confluence with the Madison and Gibbon rivers to tumble over the Firehole falls and through the Firehole canyon. At this point it’s a boisterous, tumultuous river, roaring with exuberance as it crashes over rocks, slams around high walled bends in the canyon, and sends its white frothed waters dancing into the air. Finally it makes its way through the Firehole Cascades and begins to widen and slow down and rest for awhile.

As it enters the Fountain Flats area very near the Mount Mary/Nez Perce trail it becomes an entirely different river. It’s wider, slower, often attaining a mirror like surface reflecting the pines that line its banks, with nothing to break its surface but the occasional trout rising to take a Stonefly or White Miller Caddis. Osprey take advantage of its crystal clarity to swoop down and grab its daily meal sending widening ripples outward until gradually the river returns to its quiet flow.

It is here that a pair of Trumpeter swans took residence one late spring choosing this quiet stretch of river to mate and feed and make it their home, at least for the summer. They slowly cruised up and down the still waters, gently feeding along the banks and seining the river bottom with their large webbed feet to bring the insects and other choice bits to the surface.

One warm summer day the breezes that blew up and down the river causing ripples and swirls and little wavelets to spread across the river’s surface, disturbing its normal mirror like surface, found one of the swans standing on the bank. It wasn’t a strong breeze but it was enough to stir something in the swan. A memory of past flights perhaps, or a reminder of changes to come, it called to the swan and it spread its wings and raised itself high to catch every delicious bit of the breeze ruffling its feathers. Most likely reminding it of the journey it and its mate would soon be taking as the summer wind changed to fall. The call to them to begin that journey to their winter home too strong to ignore. That will come later, for now it can bask in the sun and take delight in the wonder and warmth of the summer wind.

September Along the Madison

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Sunlit Grass – Cow Elk – Along the Madison River – Yellowstone

September in Yellowstone Park is a special time of the year, especially early September. The Rut is still some weeks away yet, the calves are big enough that they’re basically taking care of themselves, and during the hot afternoons the wolves are usually sleeping back at their dens waiting for the cool of the evening before setting out to see what bounty is available. It’s a rare moment for the cows to take a little time for themselves.

This particular cow had found a spot on a small island in the middle of the Madison river and taking advantage of the tall, golden grass covering it, has settled down for some time in the sun. A haven of relative safety she can let her guard down slightly in a rare moment of solitude. The heat of the afternoon, the absence of any breeze, the buzz of the occasional insect, plus the quiet murmuring of the river as it slowly made its way downstream was enough to allow her to recharge and get set for whatever Nature has in store for her. It’s September along the Madison.

Hurry Up Eddy The Grass Really Is Greener over Here

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In Yellowstone as well as many other places the old adages are still in use and in the case of the Buffalo, followed religiously as well. If you observe carefully you can often see them being acted out. “The grass is always greener on the other side of the (add your own barrier here)” is the one being followed at the moment.

Perfectly intelligent looking Buffalo will be quietly grazing alongside the Madison when one of them will look across the river and with a bellow race directly into the frigid water to get to the other side where the grass is obviously greener. Soon every member of the herd will be on the other side wondering why their privates are freezing and doesn’t this grass taste exactly like the grass they were just eating a few moments ago.

But an adage is an adage so there must be some purpose in having them. It can’t be just to wash their undercarriage. It must be a case of one of them overhearing it somewhere and not being the mental giants of the ungulate world, decided it must be important or someone smarter than him wouldn’t of said it. Why the rest of the herd follows him is easy to understand. If you were able to look inside that great shaggy head, which is nearly 3′ wide and weighs over 250 lbs. of solid bone except for the small cavity right in the center that the brain resides in, you would see a buffalo command center roughly the size of a very small clock radio. The commands to go left, right, forward but not backward, buffalo do not back up, lie down, get up, fight with whomever is nearest your cows, make small buffalo, gore the occasional tourist and have room for one or two adages, one of which is always “The grass is always greener on the other side of the (add your own barrier here)” The other might be “Stand in the middle of the road until all traffic is backed up at least 17 miles in either direction, then lie down.” That isn’t generally a well-known adage outside the park but it is a big one for the buffalo.

Spring is here and everybody is revved up to do springtime stuff and making sure that adages both young and old are followed. The buffalo do their part. If you haven’t followed up any old adages lately you can do your part by personally Googling adage, choose several and make them a part of your life. You’ll feel good and be a better person for it.

The Visit

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Now listen we’re going to visit the Bovinos today and I want you on your best behavior, you hear me?

Yes, mom

Don’t be pulling any stunts like you did last time. What possessed you to head-butt Lawrence anyway? you know how clumsy he is. That coffee table must have cost twenty bales of hay. You’re lucky she didn’t ask us to pay for it, your father would still be tanning your hide.

He’s a twit mom. Why do we even have to go over there?

Because she’s the herd bulls cousin and your dad wants to be on the board of directors of the MRAMA. That’s important. That means he’d be in charge of the entire Western region of the Madison River Affiliated Meadows Association and we’d have the best grazing in the entire Madison river valley. So we have to go make nice with them and see if we can’t make peace with her. I don’t much care for them either but we can at least go there and eat hay and talk. You can play with Lawrence but so help me if you head-butt him again, you won’t get any milk from me for a week. You got it?

Geez mom, I do. Man. What !  Ma! Now what?, I said I wouldn’t head-butt the little dork.

Don’t you use that tone of voice with me William Johnson, I’m talking about you doing your business in the hallway instead of out on the grass. I swear I do not know what has gotten into that melon of a head of yours. Are your horns starting to come out, is that it?

God mom don’t talk about that kind of stuff it’s embarrassing. And Lawrence locked the bathroom door so I couldn’t get in, the little toad, there was no way I was going to get outside in time. He’s always doing stuff like that. That’s why nobody likes him in nursery school. I may head-butt the little creep just for good measure.

William if you do I swear…..

Ok, Ok, Ok. Lets not stay too long alright. I don’t how long I can be good. Besides my forehead itches something awful. If that stupid Lawrence says one thing about these bumps I’m getting I will show him what a head-butt is. I don’t care if I ever get any milk again.

William for cripe’s sake if I have to tell you one more time…. Ok there they are, behave yourself now please, and for god’s sake do not try to nurse from Mrs. Bovino again. I don’t know if we’ll ever live that one down. I don’t care if your dad did think it was funny. Do not do that again. Oh Hi, Evelyn, it’s so nice to see you again. Yes it is a lovely day.

Move Along – Nothing To See Here

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Lots of times you’re in the heat of the action and you look up and there is something so different from what you are presently doing that you have to stop and just stare at it. Such was the case this September afternoon on the Madison river in Yellowstone National Park.

We had been shooting Otters as they swam back and forth in the river, hunting, catching big fat trout, there are many big fat trout in the Madison river, the young otters playing, bickering amongst themselves, making up, otters can’t stay mad for very long and generally just displaying all the behavior that makes otters, otters.

There are many animals in the park and usually everyone is focused on the big exciting ones. The grizzlies, wolves, bull elk fighting and they tend to lose sight of some of the more elusive, but equaling exciting species like the otters. And when you do see them it is normally just a glimpse as they flash by, barely giving you time to lift your camera for a grab shot. Which is why when you get to spend some quality time with them it is very special indeed.

But this day was different, the otters decided to stay around and hunt the area known as the log jam, a wide place in the river that catches all the logs and trees floating downstream and once one log is caught it catches another and so on until you have a large collection of logs and other debris stretching halfway across the river. Trout love log jams, there’s shade, plenty to eat, and places to hide when they need to. Otters love log jams for exactly the same reasons.

 Unbelievably we had the opportunity to stay with this family of otters for several hours, moving with them as they traveled up and down the river. Around noon they’d eaten enough, fooled around enough and it was time for a nap. They climbed in the middle of a particularly dense group of logs and became invisible once they were asleep. It was a cloudless day and the sun had been very hot making the noon-day light very contrasty, washing out the color of the water, even washing out the color of the dark reddish-brown of the otter’s fur. This made for poor shooting so looking for a shady spot to wait out our sleeping subjects we found a large pine to sit under and wait for their reemergence.

Whenever you set up your equipment, which consists of a large camera and telephoto lens on a big tripod you become a subject of interest for those passing by, an indicator that something important must be going on. “What do you see?” is the first question, then “What’s out there? I don’t see anything?”  or ” What a ya just sitting there for?” You try and answer their questions, explaining that there were otters here just a little while ago and they’re gone now but soon you get tired of answering the questions and dealing with their irritation that they missed something cool and somehow it’s your fault, and you begin giving short answers like “Nothing.” or “Scenery.” They hate that answer, the scenery one, because you have robbed them of seeing something really cool, like a wolf crossing the river, or an osprey in the act of catching a fish, and therefore have tricked them into stopping and wasted their time when you were only looking at scenery.

Sometimes, if you are a grumpy photographer and they are particularly obnoxious you reply with something like “Oh, you should have been here a few minutes ago. A mountain lion was crossing the river with a wolf pup in her mouth and an eagle swooped down and stole it from her. There was a hell of a fight.” We always throw “the hell of a fight” in there as that makes them really mad that they missed it. However if we’re feeling in a really peckish mood we often just say “Move along people. Nothing to see here.” this in a curt voice that doesn’t leave much room for other conversation.

In the mean time, while we have been feverishly shooting the otter family in this bad light, disgusted that we have to settle for what we know are going to be marginal shots that will be hell to deal with in Photoshop, yet ecstatic that we’ve had this time with these otters, you need a moment of decompression time to process all that you’ve seen. You need to find that shady spot and take in what else is going on around you. The spot we picked to wait for the otters just happened to be near a bend in the river where some large pines blocked the sun. The shadows and dappled sunshine produced this intense area of bright emerald light on the river’s surface in the midst’s of the deep shadows. The illumination of the trees reflected in the water produced a calming almost zen-like experience. It put everything back into perspective and perversely made us wish for the otters to take a little longer nap.

It wasn’t long before a new group of those visitors wanting to you to do their work for them by finding the next cool sight came up and the questions began again. The answer this time to “What do you see?” was “Nothing much, just some scenery.” It wasn’t long before we were alone again just watching the river.

Reflectivity

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During our recent semi-annual inspection trip we have looked at many of the functions of Yellowstone National Park and found them to be mostly functional, performing as expected in a timely and efficient manner. We had been closely monitoring the animals and their behavior as that is what the majority of visitors to the park key on. Show them a wolf, or a grizzly, or a marmot, even a buffalo and they think everything is right with the world and they’re content with their visit.

But there are the more sophisticated visitors that come to the park for more subtle pleasures. Something quieter than the sound of a wolf pack murdering a buffalo, or the frenzied screaming of a busload of tourists sighting their first chipmunk. These folks are out viewing the park at different times than the average sightseer. They want beauty and solitude and spectacular views filled with color and drama while everyone else is back at the hotel watching reruns of Jeopardy, trying to find the number of the pizza place that delivers and raiding the minibar.

Consequently there are different items to be checked, to make sure the park is ready for these types of visitors too, such as reflectivity, which as you know is the ability to accurately mirror the sky and all its colors on a body of some reflective surface such as a lake or river, thereby adding to the overall viewing experience.

Checking this function is a little trickier than one might imagine, as there are forces at work here that the average viewer doesn’t take in immediately. Such as placing the reflective surface at the proper angle so that the setting sun shows up correctly on the surface. The cloud generation system must be at peak efficiency to produce the proper amount of cloud material at the time the sun is setting. This means maintaining an incredible timing system. You don’t run that on a Timex. Also the surface of the water must be properly prepared and correct filters and coatings maintained in the proper combination so the colors are even more intense in the reflection than in the sky.

Doing all this is hard, like Chinese arithmetic, or trying to figure out what was going on in Jane Fonda’s head when she toured North Viet Nam. Hard, really hard. Our usual spot to see if this function is working is that gentle bend in the Madison river just a little ways above the log jam not far from seven mile bridge. The only way to observe this phenomenon is to be there about 9:00 at night near the end of May. That’s it. You pull up at the parking area, get out, walk down to the shore with your clipboard and check off ‘Yes’ on the line item, “Reflectivity On: Yes or No”. That’s all there is to it. We’ve been doing these inspections for many years now  and never, ever have we had to check the ‘No’ box. Well that’s not exactly true. There have been the few times when the cloud generator went completely nuts and produced way too many clouds and even rain storms but then the park staff sets up a roadside notification saying “Reflectivity is turned off for a short time. This is not a permanent problem. Please be patient. Reflectivity will be restored momentarily.  We have had to send to Bozeman for a new O-ring for the cloud generator and expect it to be back on-line before Jeopardy is over. Thank you for your understanding.” That only happened to us once so we can’t really count it as a common problem.

All of the while we were evaluating this situation and remarking on how reflective this reflectivity actually was, only two other cars pulled up to join us. They were really nice people. They were from out of town, some urban area or other and set up portable lawn chairs and drank wine. Pretty good wine too, out of bottle not the boxed stuff you get at Value Jug for 3 bucks a box, which tells us that the person who seeks out reflectivity is just a skoshy bit more cosmopolitan than the average slam-bam, “I can do the park in an hour and fifteen minutes” kind of visitor. We liked these people.  At times like this you fall into quiet conversations about life and beauty and how you don’t really care for Jeopardy reruns. They seemed surprised that there is an organization like The Institute with its modest but incredible Director, that cares so much about places like Yellowstone National Park that we would take it on ourselves to make these inspection trips and publish the results for the public at large to see. We allowed that we were glad too.

Note : To those of you tuning in late the following posts will catch you up on preceding events. There is no extra charge for this service, it is included in the cost of admission. We know you don’t want to miss a minute of our fascinating but undocumented report.

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/announcement-13/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/yellowstone-passes-inspection/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/ghosts-in-the-darkness/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/you-dont-see-that-every-day/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/now-are-the-foxes/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/into-each-park-some-rain-must-fall/

http://www.bigshotsnow.com/through-the-keyhole/

Yellowstone Passes Inspection

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Those of you who follow the blog religiously or even non-religiously, know that we have just been on our bi-annual inspection trip of Yellowstone National park. We let you know of our plans to inspect the park in this posting http://www.bigshotsnow.com/the-words-out/ . Well we’re back and we are excited to announce that Yellowstone has passed its inspection with flying colors.

As mentioned before we went up there this year with a new research vessel, aptly named The Mothership, a newly commissioned, completely overhauled and refitted land yacht, large enough and strong enough to be able to tow our shuttle craft and haul the nearly eight dozen interns we intended to use as bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. We had decided on a new strategy this trip which included dressing our interns up in various animal costumes, to mimic small prey and injured or helpless larger animals such as an elk calf with a damaged leg, etc. to see if the predator population in the park would act in an appropriate manner or not.

We have good news and bad news as to the success of that strategy. The good news was the predators acted in a completely predictable way when confronted with our bait animal aggressiveness testing investigators. The bad news is it resulted in a complete loss of every single one of our interns. That’s a great big oops on our part. We were hoping that at least a few of them would make it through the different testing situations but that was not to be the case. However we are able to completely verify that a wolf will always be a wolf and a bear will always be a bear.

After completing the section on our report titled “Predator population still aggressive in its pursuit of prey” we were able to check that item off as a yes and get on with the rest of the inspection. This resulted in The Director, who is of course me, having to handle a much larger work load than originally considered. (Note to self: Consider holding back some of the interns in the next inspection this fall to do all of the crap work required.) But as one who leads from the front we sucked it up and got on with all the remaining tasks involved in completing an inspection of a facility as large as Yellowstone National Park.

There are many, many areas to be checked to complete this task and over the following days we will attempt to show you the various areas and critical events which must take place to keep the park functioning at the level expected by the visiting public. Are the young being born on time? Are the thermal events turned on and operating properly? Are the predators doing their jobs? Well we can cross that one off now. We know the answer to that one. Are there the proper number of smaller activities being performed, birds doing bird stuff, plants situated in the most scenic areas, large overviews of the park like snow being on the peaks in the Lamar valley, rivers running up to their banks but not over, all the usual stuff the public doesn’t notice until it’s not there.

We can state at this time that park is functioning exactly as required. Our first function check, the one we do right before we release the interns, is to see if the Buffalo, especially the bulls, are placed strategically throughout the park and in the proper numbers. As our inspection of the park always begins through the West entrance of the park along the Madison river, it is imperative that a master bull, one of the better looking more regal appearing ones, be stationed just past Seven mile bridge, in the first major meadow but not too far from the road, so it can fulfill its duty as the official icon of the park. We checked that one off as done.

Watch this space for further reports on your very favorite national park. Tomorrow should bring something interesting.