So in the last post I featured a black bear we came upon in Yellowstone National Park. What could possibly be better than a small black bear out in the wild living life to the fullest? Give up? How about a 20′ high Grizzly bear sitting in the town square?! Good news, you are in luck.
Pretty cool eh? Alas, I don’t ‘t want to tease my readers too much, this big guy isn’t real – sorry. Well, it is not a live bear per-se, but it is a real statue we came upon while cruising through and cruising through Cody Wyoming on our way back from Yellowstone. Now you may be thinking there needs to be some structure cleanup in the previous sentence but not the case. I immediately spotted this perfect Phoadtography (link here) opportunity at least two blocks away. With a polite request to the driver to simply stop speeding for a minute, I risked life and limb to climb into the backseat and find the camera. A fast run through the Nikon menu system to get the settings right for the proper “on the move” exposure, an acrobatic move to get the glass on target, a strategic snap of the shutter button and presto a perfect Phoadtography shot to add to the collection. Yes, that would have been the story had someone actually acted upon my request to slow down. My hopes were crushed as the grizzly quickly became obscured by light poles and traffic signs. One last hope… “Can we go back? Can we go back? Can we go back? Can we go back? Can we go b… thank you!!! (annoyance tends to works 62.5% of the time – the other times she secretly unlocks my door and takes a hard left). As a result, we should all thank Linda for looping back around so I could get the shot.
Which is all a long drawn out lead into the feature topic of this post. Please extend a big welcome to the top of the Yellowstone National Park food chain Ursus Arctos Horribilis. The Ursa Major if you will of our National Park system. Of course, I am talking about the Grizzly Bear.
Having struggled to get good shots of the black bear in the previous set, it was a relief to see that these came out a lot better. Linda and I were on our way back from taking photographs of the Yellowstone Canyon Falls when some new arrivals informed us there was a Grizzly sighting up the road from where we parked. This was candy to my ears so we quickened our pace back to the car. Normally, this kind of news would have us single focused, but all of a sudden a big fat raven decided to dive bomb into the parking lot (think WKRP turkey episode). This required a few shots as historical evidence that Ravens should consider developing a Weight Watchers program (see last set of pictures here). Once that was done we headed off to validate the sighting… sure enough, there it was foraging for food in the fresh snow. The following shot is one of my favorites with the snow on the nose.
Hit the jump to see some more pictures of the Yellowstone Grizzly
Wildlife Intrigued 