(Note: These images are just click to expand because I am trying to catch up.)

After the hiking at Barnes Hole Road, we went Harlequin Lake, which is only a mile and a half from the Madison Visitor Center. On the drive to Harlequin Lake, I figure out that the button with the red dot beside it was the record button. Doh! The movies were posted on the original day 13 post, but here are the processed raw pictures from Harlequin Lake. They are not perfect, but I am figuring out the RAW processing program. They are getting better.

At the trailhead, we saw a chipmunk. We still do not know if it is a Yellow-pine Chipmunk or a Least Chipmunk. If I decrease the color saturation, he is a Least Chipmunk. If I increase the color saturation, he is a Yellow-pine Chipmunk.

A little further on, we thought we saw another chipmunk playing king of the logs. WRONG! This is not a chipmunk, it is a golden-mantled ground squirrel. You can tell because it is missing the stripes by the eyes. (The right hand picture looks like it is in shadow because it was taken an hour later on the walk out.)

On the path to the lake, we saw what looked like Pine Marten scat. I walked past it, but Kate said, “Oh look, a butterfly. Take a picture!” I said, “Uh, it is sitting on poop.” You have Kate to thank for the picture of poop. I posted it full page width, so you can see it in all the zoomed in detail that I had to. (At least you did not have to smell it.)

The butterfly was definitely not pretty enough to suffer through that. Next was a damselfly. (A dragonfly has wings that lay flat on its back.)

When we made it to Harlequin Lake, there was a white and black bird diving for fish. We thought it might be another snake bird (Western Grebe), but the neck seemed shorter and red. It turned out to be a Red-necked Grebe. He was too far away to get great pictures, but he was a new bird to mark off the list.

Next, a Mallard swam by. He was not too far away. I had to zoom out to avoid counting his nose hairs.

After a family with kids scared the Mallard away. we walked further along the lake to watch an American Coot. We first started seeing these in Kansas. This one got into a fight with a bit of weed that looked like an American Coot Toupee.

We stopped at the Madison Visitor Center, which was closed, and then drove home. We saw people taking pictures at Fishing Bridge, which means there is usually an animal there. This time it was an Elk with antlers. The first elk antlers we have seen in the park. I tried various exposures because the elk was badly back lit. The photographs are not bad, but I am not entirely happy with any of them.

On the walk back to the car from photographing the Elk, I noticed footprints in the sand under the bridge. Most of them looked like Canada Goose feet. (Canada Geese in Yellowstone are like rats in New York City.) After looking up bird footprints, our best guess is that the big ones are Great Blue Heron or Sandhill Crane. The prints lack the back toe, like a Sandhill Crane. The prints have two toes closer together, like the Great Blue Heron. Kate put her foot beside it as a measure. If you extrapolate a back toe, they would be about 6-8 inches long.

The weather is supposed to be cold and ugly tomorrow, so I might be able to catch up on some of the photo processing.