News and reviews

Yellowstone National Park is one of the most beautiful locations on the planet and during the winter months this magical place is one of the finest places for wildlife photography. This was my second visit to Yellowstone and was completely different from my first. On my first visit the winter was extremely cold with a lot of snow but this time it had been the opposite with a very mild period by comparison. This certainly helped in being able to photograph the more elusive residents of the park with species like Wolf. The Elk population usually escapes the harsh winter conditions and head to lower ground but this year large numbers could still be found. This availability of prey has certainly benefited the resident wolves and we got lucky with a couple of amazing sightings.

It has been my ambition to get images of wild Wolves for many years and I have tried on a few occasions without any success. Our first sighting of this beautiful predator was one of the best things that I have seen and photographed throughout my career, so you can imagine the adrenalin rush that was pumping through me. We had spotted a Coyote first that was feeding on an Elk carcass that had been killed by the Canyon pack just by the side of the road. After a few minutes we spotted a lone wolf coming down a steep bank and heading our way. It paused in the distance for a few minutes and I thought that would be our only chance to get an image of this elusive animal but to my complete surprise it headed to the river and started to cross. It was one of those moments that will last for ever in my memory and I am pleased I stayed calm enough to get the image.

What happened next was just unbelievable as the wolf then headed straight to the carcass which was only 40 feet away from where we were standing. It started to chase the Coyote off the carcass and then fed on the dead Elk for about ten minutes.

We were so engrossed in this wolf that was feeding we never noticed the rest of the pack that was watching us from a ridge. It was amazing to witness the rest of the pack’s body language and behaviour as they greeted their companion after he went back up to the ridge after he had finished feeding.

That first encounter would have been hard to beat but on our next day in the Lamar valley we had another encounter with a different pack. This pack was called the Mollies and they had moved up north from the Hayden valley. The Mollies are a very large pack which contains 19 wolves and they have caused some major disruption with the other packs in the Lamar valley this winter. They had killed a young male Bison by the side of the road at Pebble Creek but the park rangers thought it was too dangerous so moved the dead bison further away. We had been there for about two hours waiting for something to show up and I spotted a Coyote which was hunting across the road. I walked down the road to get some pictures but I noticed a Wolf coming out of the trees and was heading to the exact spot where the dead Bison had been. In hindsight I wished I had just waited near to where the carcass had been because now it seems so obvious that the Wolves would come back to that spot.

About three wolves were moving between the trees and I did manage to get some more images but they never came out in the open but I really liked these images and are my favourite from the whole trip. A young black wolf came out towards dusk and started to hunt mice in the meadow which really just topped off our special encounter.

The Lamar valley is also excellent for many other species and we managed to see and photograph most of them throughout our trip. A large Bull Elk was very impressive and we also found a small group of Pronghorn Antelope which was an added bonus because they usually migrate to lower ground too.

It was nice to be able to get some images of this Bald Eagle pair that was perched in this tree by the Lamar River too.

The Lamar valley is an excellent location but to really get a taste of Yellowstone you have to go into the interior of the park and the only way you can do that is by a special vehicle called a snow coach. We had exclusive use of this for four days and it allowed us to explore the remotest parts of the interior. The Hayden Valley in my opinion is one of the nicest locations in Yellowstone and last time I was here I couldn’t see it because it was a complete white-out as we hit it in the middle of a blizzard. This time though we had some beautiful weather and it allowed us to go into the Valley on our first three days.

We found good numbers of Trumpeter Swans along the Yellowstone River and also bumped into Coyotes in the Hayden on many occasions.

The Hayden Valley can also be excellent for Red Fox and the whole group was really hoping to see this beautiful mammal. After our Wolf encounters I thought we had used all of our luck but we did manage to find a Fox and again it was one of those encounters that will stay long in the memory bank.

Yellowstone is such a beautiful place and is a landscape photographers dream and we stopped off at many different points for this opportunity. I even managed to increase my own landscape portfolio but I don’t have too much time to look through them so just thought I would share some.

So where are the Bison? Well you can’t go to Yellowstone and not photograph this wonderful creature so I thought I would finish with some of my favourites. The weather was very mild for the most part of the trip but on the last couple of days the temperature started to drop and then we really did get a taste of the extreme cold that these hardy animals have to survive.

The temperature went down to about minus 25 and as we headed off in the early morning the conditions were what photographer’s dream of. The trees and vegetation were covered in hoar frost and so were the Bison. It really was a great way to spend the last part of the trip to photograph this iconic mammal.

I would really like to thank Jake our guide for all his help throughout the trip, his knowledge of the park and the Wolves was amazing and how he spotted that beautiful Red Fox I will never know. Jake your sense of humour matched my own and you were great company throughout. I would also like to thank everyone for joining me on the trip and I am so pleased you got to share all these wonderful experiences. Mark’s impression of me washing my hair in the morning was priceless and I am still laughing now. I am planning on returning to Yellowstone next year for the Autumn to cover this location at a different time of the year and I am also going back in the winter of 2014 so if you would like to register your interest then please call me on 07951 945433 or drop me an email and I will let you know all the details. I have a quick turnaround now as I am off to Finland and Norway for three weeks so hopefully I have more of the white stuff to share.

Danny