This gallery contains photographs taken this year from May through October  in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding region.  Each couple of weeks in November and December, I will post another month in review from the past summer.  The first entry will represent May, the second will represent June, etc, until the entire gallery is up at the end of the year.  This will give a chronological order to a season of photography in the Yellowstone region.  For each month, I'll post a selection of twenty images and write a short synopsis of the photo opportunities for that month.

September

While May can be a cold, snowy month in Yellowstone, June is often a month of change.  It's a time where the cold finally gives way to longer days and warmer temperatures.  Meadows turn green, providing nourishment for ungulates and flowers start to bloom.  ... Usually.  June 2011 seemed late to arrive.  The cold temperatures didn't want to relinquish their hold and the snow pack in the higher elevations held on through the entire month.  Yellowstone Lake, which usually thaws around the middle of May to early June held on to the middle of month.  This was a good indicator for how the summer would go as most seasonal changes would be about two to three weeks later than normal.  Wildlife sightings continued to be good for most of the month, as seen by the photos here.  In June, bears are still in the lower elevations, elk calves are making appearances, and various bird species are beginning to nest, including swallows.  Before the lake thaws, otters can occasionally be seen on the ice near the edge of the lake, hunting for trout.  Eagles can be seen trying to steal the otter's meal.  And beavers find a meal of bark and wood, with willow being a favorite.  As always, by the end of June, temperatures and wonderful, the snow pack finally frees its grasp on the lower elevations, and grasses show their renewal in a celebration of green!

With July's arrival, warm weather becomes the norm, flowers begin to bloom, and wildlife moves into the high elevations.  Wildlife sightings in July can be hit or miss.  Sometimes, depending where food sources are found, animals can be fairly easily seen.  But more typical, as was July 2011, wildlife move up into the mountains and become more difficult to find.  Well, except for the ever present bison, which can frequently be found in Hayden and Lamar Valleys, often close to the road, through the summer.  Meanwhile, rodents, which hibernate through the winter, become common again, such as marmots, ground squirrels, and others.  But the slow wildlife sightings was the only thing typical about July 2011.  With the late arrival of Spring, flowers were still about two weeks later than normal.  Late as they may have been, when they finally bloomed, they did so in great abundance.  I decided to take advantage of this and made several trips to Jackson Hole where I found beautiful fields of flowers with the Tetons as the backdrop.  Antelope Flats, Oxbow Bend, and Mount Washburn in Yellowstone, all had prolific wildflower displays this summer.  Photographing sunrise at Oxbow Bend was a treat since, despite the abundance of flowers, the huge crowds of photographers often found here in September were no where to be seen.  I can't recall photographing sunrise at Oxbow Bend before and having the place to myself!

August can often be a slow month for photography in Yellowstone.  Wildlife have moved high in the mountains.  Flowers are fading and grasses are turning brown.  So this year, instead of struggling with finding interesting things to photograph, I headed to some different places such as the Beartooth Highway and the Pryor Mountains.  On the Beartooth Highway, pikas were busily curing grasses to store them in their dens for the long winter.  A young fox was seen one morning as it traversed the high mountain tundra, searching for a meal.  And my first ever mountain goat photos were realized.  In the Pryor Mountains, we were lucky to find several wild horses, decendants of the Spanish ponies brought from Europe several hundred years ago.  These and all wild horses in the US are often the center of controversy as they are not native to the land but introduced by man.  Some would remove them altogether but horses hold a strong place in our hearts and heritage, so others want them to continue to roam free.  Yellowstone itself isn't totally without photographic possibilities in August however.  If one can stand long traffic delays in Hayden Valley caused by the rutting bison, then photo opportunities abound.  As the large bull bison pursue their female counterparts, battles with other bulls are inevitable.  I have a photo below, 0811-06, showing two bulls in the midst of battle.  I thought I had a pretty fast shutterspeed set, but this fight was so fast and furious that even with the fast shutterspeed, the combatants still are a bit blurry.  I almost deleted this shot, but opted to keep it, as the blur evokes movement, of which there is plenty.  Notice the tuft of hair flying off one combatant into the air!

Summer's Grand Finale, that's often what happens in September and October in Yellowstone.  Autumn comes early at this elevation, with snows often arriving in September.  Of course, some times the snow doesn't arrive until much later and usually it doesn't start accumulating for the winter until November or December.  As with spring, autumn is a time of transition.  Elk, moose, and other deer are going into their rut, or breeding season.  Bears are in a phase of gorging themselves to put on the weight necessary to survive the long winter in their dens.  While many rodents are already in their dens.  Aspens and cottonwoods display the beautiful colors of autumn for a brief time, painting the landscape in gold, orange, red, and yellow.  This past autumn, I wanted to find rutting elk and moose while also photographing autumn color in the Tetons.  Summer lingered into September this year and the warm temperatures kept the elk in the woods during the warm daylight hours.  Often, I would arrive at a location before sunrise with a nice bull in sight only to watch as the herd moved into the trees at day break.  A few cooperated and I was still able to get some nice shots however.  Meanwhile, my bad luck with moose finally came to end in October when I found 6 moose one day before sunset and then another 11 the next morning after sunrise.  Lastly, one of my self projects this year was to take some nice images at West Thumb.  I waited all summer for the water levels in the lake to drop low enough to expose Big Cone and Fishing Cone.  Finally, in September I had my chance.  Cool mornings saw a beautiful mist on the lake each morning and I feel my project was successful.  And so another summer in Yellowstone came to a close.