It's almost fall on the Grove Creek

At the end of the summer and before the fall, the wildlife are getting ready for the change in weather. The young bluebirds that were born this spring are maturing but they will not get the vibrant color that we are used to until later as you can see by this one in a nearby tree,

One its buddies returned to the nest. You can ask how I know it returned to the nest where it was born and I say look at the color of it's feathers. If it's a male it will become vibrant. If it's a female the color around the head and eyes would be gray.

The sand hill cranes usually arrive in late March or early April. They mate for life and typically they will produce one or two off spring. This is a proud mama and papa strutting their stuff.

However, it's getting close to time to head south. This is a whole group with the one in the middle giving exercise lessons getting them ready for the long trip. The two of the left are trying hard, the one on the right is watching while the little one is probably one of this years offspring and is in the learning process.

and of course we have deer, who don't migrate but are careful at this time of the year that we don't interfere with their fawns. You can see this lady was trying to hide from me when I got near her with my camera.

As fall gets nearer and it starts to cool, there will be more.

Surprises as I approached the Grove Creek

Every year I have observed female deer along the Grove Creek, which is south of our home. They have  fawns in the late spring and I watch them with my telescope as they graze in the pastures near the creek. With my telescope I have been able to determine the female is nursing based on the size of her utter. This is a photograph I took of one of the females from our deck with 400mm zoom lens.

I purposely avoid getting near them as the fawns are young to avoid scaring them and perhaps getting them injured. However, I said, now is the time to take my camera and get a close up of the fawns. I head toward the creek and all of a sudden, the first surprise. Ahead of me along the fence was a small yellow and black bird. I had not seen these before, so I had to take some photographs. This was the first one I captured.

It was a goldfinch. When I got back to the house, I learned that this little bird sheds these beautiful colors in the winter time. I had seen them in their winter colors around the barn but didn't know what they were. They left the fence and were flying around in the pasture, when I captured this image of one of them perched on this old sunflower.

So on to the creek. As I get closer, I seen two fawns. It must be another deers baby. I am getting closer and no long need the zoom lens to see the fawns. Now there are three fawns and I was guessing that the female that was near, must be in charge of the babies. This is the photo I took the the group.

Mother is in the lower right of the photo and the fawns are at the top. Now for the surprise. As I got closer, mother became alarmed and must have alerted the fawns, as they all took off together. Surprise - this mother must of had triplets as the entire entourage headed over the nearby hill and were gone. If these babies belonged to someone else, they would have headed to where their mother was. As they followed this mother, I gave her the nod as being the mother of all three.

Cervius Canadensis

Most of your are wondering what is the significance of these 2 words. It represents the species of moose, elk, and deer. When Marty and I visited Yellowstone National Park las week we saw lots of elk, some deer, and no moose. As we entered the park at Mammoth Hot Springs, Marty suggested we travel to the top of the "hot springs" to see if there might be some elk. After traveling as far as we could, (the road south was closed for the winter), we turned the car around and look what we saw.
These ladies were very content, sitting on the top of the hill, but there was one that looked quite attractive, as if she were posing for me. I did not wait, focused my camera and took several pictures, this is the one I saved.
We then headed east toward Cooke City to see if the boys were around their normal hang out which is usually about 5 to 7 miles from Mammoth Hot Springs. No one was there, in fact we didn't see anything of interest or near enough to the road until we were almost ready to turn around. It was a Big Horn sheep, you'll see him on the next post. We started our return and we did see a bull elk, but he wasn't posing and we went on to Chico for a great dinner.

The next day, we headed toward the "hot spot" again for the boys, and we found them. Not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4. Three of them were lined up as if they knew we were coming to take their photograph.

The 4th one was near by, still grazing on what was available. He was also doing all kinds of antics, face in the snow, scratching his head with his hind hoof, butting the ground with his rack, and then he stood still for this photograph.

He eventually must have either got tired or was full and decided to rest. I focused on his antlers as I felt he had just a beautiful rack. Looked like a trophy to me. I am not good enough at comparing pictures and antlers but I am suspicious that this may have been the bull elk that I photographed over 2 years ago.

Day one was the girls, day two was the boys, and after we left the park, Marty wanted to drive to Jardine, mostly a ghost town about 5 miles outside of Gardiner high in the mountains. We were almost back to town, when on the top of the horizon we saw this deer. It posed until I could get this photograph.
Come back again soon as we will see more wildlife from our trip to Yellowstone.

Guess what I found

Today was the first day in almost 2 weeks that it wasn't raining and cold. I was driving the Gator through the pastures looking at the potential for hay when I happened to see a deer at the opposite end of the field I was in. I stopped and watched, she was definitely watching me, finally she started to move as if she was going to move out of the pasture, then she stopped. I thought I saw a fawn, but wasn't sure. She made another move away from me and finally she took off across another pasture. If she had a new baby, she would probably be trying to distract me to keep me away from the fawn.

I stayed at the gate for several minutes, until I was sure I saw the fawn, drove the Gator to the house, got my camera with the 400mm lens and headed back to the pasture. I did not want to get too close to the fawn and disturb it or it's mother. Mom was no where to be seen so I planted myself far enough away that I would not be spooking the fawn in hopes that it would be close enough for a picture. Twice in 30 minutes it peeked it's head out of the tall grass, I got 8 pictures, this is the best one.

Clint needs to get better

As I was traveling toward Fishtail yesterday with my camera by my side, I saw at least a 5 foot snake crossing the road. I had the wrong lens on the camera and by the time I had the correct lens, the snake was gone. I got out of the truck, walked through the grass and couldn't find. That's when I found the sheep and the spurge that I talked about yesterday.

After stopping at the General Store, the dump, the lumber company, the bank, the post office, and the IGA, I started down the Stillwater toward the Grove Creek. I spotted a female deer, stopped the truck and with my 400mm zoom lens I took its picture. Not until I saw the picture close up on the computer, did I realize it was not a doe about to have a fawn or perhaps a doe with a fawn. I was too far away to tell when I took the picture.

It is the time of year for the female deer to start having their babies. They usually separate themselves from the rest of the herd to have their baby, that's why I thought I might have found one. Sooner or later, you'll see a picture of a doe with her fawn.

Have you ever counted deer with Marty & Clint?

If you have been visiting Montana, you soon discover that there are a lot of deer. Someone asks, how many are there? One answer is that for every person in Montana, there are at least 4 deer. So we're returning to the Circle B Bar T Ranch from a hike or dinner or a parade when we start a competition as to which side of the car are there the most deer. The counting starts and the winner isn't declared until we get fairly close to the driveway. The most deer every counted, both sides of the car, from Fishtail to our mail box is around 100.

I took this picture on our way home from the branding. I counted 33 deer. This does not include the males, as they are not with the ladies at this time of the year.

BE SURE TO DUBBLE CLICK ON THE PICTURE