As we approach the end of the year, it’s a mad scramble to try and stay up-to-date on as many of my photo and person projects as possible. So I’m relieved to have finished my 2021 Yellowstone photos. The latest collection covers my two spring trips—in early May and late May/early June—as well as my recent October visit. If you stayed abreast of my trip reports, you know the latter produced only a small number of keepers, so it made sense to combine them with the other two batches of photos. And in case you’re wondering, my winter 2021 trips made it into their own gallery in the archive.
As always, you can jump straight to the photo archive and use the Slideshow function to view the full Yellowstone 2021 gallery. A short preview is below.
I’ve never seen so many Eared Grebes migrating through the park as I did in early May this year.
Bison calves are born starting in mid-April in Yellowstone, and remain cute into early summer at least.
This was my best muskrat encounter to date. This little fellow came and went in the Yellowstone River, not even dissuaded by a recent hailstorm.
Wolves were pretty active on carcasses near the road in the spring.
Fellow scavengers hang out near a carcass.
A female badger had an active sett (den) close to the road in the Lamar Valley for a few weeks in the spring.
We were very fortunate to catch this lone gray wolf in a spring snowstorm during our early May visit.
I had envisioned getting a “two-faced” bison image at some point when the spring snows hit, but didn’t land one until we found this fellow in Hayden Valley one morning.
On the final day of our early May trip, we lucked into two American Avocets along the shores of Yellowstone Lake.
This cinnamon sow had a pair of black cubs. She was living in the same area where I saw twin cinnamon cubs in 2015 (see the Yellowstone Spring 2015 Bears gallery)… I believe she may be one of those cubs, six years older!
Certainly the best raven sunrise shoot I’ve ever had!
Harlequin Ducks are one of my favorite species to photograph in the park, but they’re only seen for a few weeks every spring.
The bear known as the Lake Butte Sow (also, Raspberry) and her cubs were busy foraging near the road in mid-October.
As with my 2020 October visit, we found a weasel transitioning from its summer to winter coat.
View the full Yellowstone 2021 gallery (195 photos). And remember that prints of nearly all of these images can be purchased directly through the gallery.
If you are interested in joining me on a future Yellowstone tour, my next spring offering will likely be in 2023. Visit the Workshops & Tours page for more information.
