Today’s original plan was to get up at 7 am and go wolf spotting in Hayden Valley. Kate woke up at 6:45 am and saw that it was going to rain. The plan changed and we decided to sleep in instead. At 8 am, we got up and decided to go anyway.

On the way to the closest wolf den pullout, there was a bear jam. The cause was a large grizzly and 2 cubs climbing up a hill. We pulled over even though it was not on the bucket list. Kate wanted to test her scope and practice taking pictures.

At one point, the mama went into the river and swam halfway across the river. Then turned around as if calling for the cubs to join. From what Kate saw, the cubs did not enter the water. The mother swam back to shore and the three bears went on top of the hill. At this point, the sky turned black and a downpour started. Kate and John raced back to the car. John carried the spotting scope since he could run faster carrying the scope. We were both drenched by the time we got into the car.

Since it was raining cats and dogs :-), we decided to drive to Lamar to hopefully see a moose. On the way, we stopped at the overlook to look at the Osprey Nest that we saw earlier in our travels.

Since rain stopped and the sun was starting to come out, Kate took out her scope and John his camera gear.

We know that the nest has at least 2 chicks. We saw them being fed. The chicks are very small and hard to see. Look to the left of the adult. The video wobbles due the wind.

In the selfie picture, you will notice a large gathering at the lookout for the osprey nest. In Yellowstone, anytime people driving by see large cameras like Johns or Kate’s scope, they stop. So needless to say, lots of people stopped. Thankfully no one asked if it was a bear :-). Kate was extra nice and let folks look through her scope to see the birds.

The next stop was the Northeast Entrance looking for moose. Along the way, we saw a lot of folks stopped and looking at the mountains. We stopped and the mountains had a family of Mountain Goats (2 adults and 3 babies) and 1 lone Mountain Goat in another area.

Kate pulled out her scope and tried to take pictures. Unfortunately, many did not turn out because scope eye piece was left in the out position vs. pulled in. Another set had issues because there was a gap between the phone camera and the scope attachment.

We drove to Northwest Entrance and exited the park into the Gallatin National Forest. We continued driving until Cooke City, MT hoping to see a moose, with no luck.

So, we turned around and ate our packed lunch at Trout Lake. We were told that moose can sometimes be found in this area. We talked to a person who hiked trout lake, and no moose were observed. We also did not see any moose while we ate our lunch.

We continued our drive to Slough Creek Road. We had some luck seeing birds in this area. John was told that a Golden Eagle nest was visible on one of the mountainsides. We needed to look for a mountain with a white spot then look up. (white spots being bird droppings)

John found the mountain by observing the large group of people parked and looking upwards. There was a Golden Eagle nest with at least 1 chick. Amazingly, the chicks are white and black. Very different than the parents. Kate took a few successful slow-motion videos. The wind negatively impacted the ability to take great pictures.

John had an unsuccessful photography day with his new camera. The camera is vastly more complex than the previous camera, and a setting was renamed with the new camera. The camera did not focus where John wanted, so most of the pictures were blurry. Some of the videos might be okay, so he might post them another day. As a result, all the photos in today’s blog came from Kate’s phone. Tomorrow, we plan to go out again and take photos.