Life on a Volcano

After Tammy and I watched Old Faithful erupt, we hiked a five mile trail that explored Upper and Midway Geyser Basin. This trail was a mixture of gravel path and boardwalk that takes you past the myriad geothermal features in the area. This was an other-worldly place that smelled of hydrogen sulfide, was clouded by waves of steam, and was a confusing mix of warm wet air and cold dry air. In the middle of all of that, however, there were animals living out their lives, apparently ignorant of, or adjusted to, the volcanic workings of the area.

The first picture is of a Mountain Bluebird. These were fairly common, and their behaviors reminded me of the Eastern Bluebird that I am more familiar with. The second picture is of an Osprey eating a fish (I am assuming it is trout) while steam from some geothermal feature wafts by in the background. And the third picture is another American Bison, this one crossing Firehole River. The "rock wall" in the upper left corner of this picture is the outer wall of Riverside Geyser.

Aggressive Osprey

After visiting both Split Oak Mitigation Forest and Moss Park, I made a trip to Tibet-Butler Preserve. This is a chunk of land on the side of a lake. All other sides of the lake are being developed into subdivisions.

One trail within the Tibet-Butler Preserve takes you to the edge of the lake where you might get a glimpse of Ospreys. I managed to see not only an Osprey, but an Osprey that was, for whatever reason, showing some aggression towards an Anhinga.

I do not have a picture of the "victim" Anhinga prior to the incident, but he was perched at the top of a tree sunning himself. This picture of a different Anhinga shows what I mean.



This is a picture of the aggressor. In this case it is the Osprey that decided to dive-bomb the Anhinga perched at the top of a tree.



The result was captured in this picture. The poor Anhinga was doing everything it could to not fall all the way to the ground or swamp or whatever was at the bottom of the tree.



There was a happy ending. The Anhinga did manage to pull itself back up to a perched position. I just wish I had captured the impact where the Osprey actually knocked the Anhinga from its original perch.