-- A newborn pronghorn antelope struggles to its feet to
stand briefly at its mother’s side before crumpling back into the grey sage,
hidden from sight. Seeming to ignore her offspring, the mother moves away to distract
potential predators, but returns at full gallop when a raven swoops by to
investigate the calf.
-- Dark clouds over the mountains portend coming rain as we
stand on a hill above the sweeping Lamar Valley, hundreds of buffalo and their
calves dotting a valley turned golden with dandelions, an American version of
the Serengeti. The dark adults rest with legs folded under them, their humps
appearing as giant boulders, while the calves lie on their sides, sturdy red
legs stretched out in the afternoon sun. I inhale their warm, sweet, animal
scent.
--Middle-of-the-night tremors shake our campground in
seismically active Norris, setting unseen wolves in nearby forests to howling.
-- Joining 40 other spectators, I stand in stinging hail in
Swan Valley, futilely attempting to capture photos of a mother grizzly and two
cubs in high sage through a fogged lens. I give up when the hail increases to
olive size, shredding two photographers’ umbrellas and driving all but the most
dedicated to the shelter of their vehicles.
--A mountain bluebird nest occupies a hole in the tree
across from our campsite, the parents popping in and out to feed chirping nestlings
and the cerulean blue male keeping watch. A little squirrel who blunders onto a
neighboring tree trunk is swiftly chased off the tree and far down the road by
a flash of brilliant blue.
--Black bears graze like cattle in lush spring grass,
tearing up giant clumps with obvious relish. A young bear near Phantom Lake
draws the usual squadron of onlookers, who chatter excitedly at his proximity
to the road. A barrage of shutters clicks each time a bear’s head is raised,
since much of the time, like resting bison, they’re indistinguishable from boulders,
heads lowered and spending up to 20 hours a day eating.
We’ve seen a number of black bears at fairly close range --
a sow with three cubs, solitary blacks and a gorgeous cinnamon – and one large
grizzly boar who moved much too close to the road, causing the rookie ranger’s
voice to crack with anxiety as he ordered us all into our cars.
Black bears are forest dwellers, tiny cubs scampering up
tree trunks with ease, while the long claws of grizzlies are made for digging,
not gripping bark, and these bears tend to appear in open spaces, usually at a
distance.
--We spot two just-born elk calves our last day, one born
into the resident herd at Mammoth, where elk lounge on lawns outside the
historic military residences. We saw the Mammoth mother moments before she went
off into the sage to give birth. The new calf entered the world while we were watching
a great horned owl mother feed her two remaining nestlings and coax them from
their nest, the third sibling watching intently from a nearby tree.
--As we prepared to move on, the new elk mother appeared
with her long-legged calf, sporting Bambi spots for camouflage and blinking
huge brown eyes in the bright spring sun. Meanwhile in Swan Valley, a grizzly
sow fed her cubs the remains of a stillborn elk calf. And In Lamar, a young
wolf learned to hunt by capturing a newly-born pronghorn.
The snow melts, buffalo shed their winter wool and wildflowers
emerge from the mud in this season of beginnings and endings. The young that
survive grow stronger.
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