Canyon
With the promise of good lighting, we drove to Canyon to photograph Lower Yellowstone Falls. We timed our outing to catch the rainbow over the falls at Lookout Point and Red Rock Point.
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We photographed Lower Yellowstone Falls for about 15 minutes before the rainbow gradually grew stronger and more distinct. Interestingly, the yellow end of the rainbow spectrum was strongest within the yellow-walled canyon. The trade-off for waiting for the rainbow was that we missed the warm, sunrise light on the canyon walls.
After we photographed the falls with and without the rainbow, we hiked down 260 feet below the rim to Red Rock Point to shoot the falls from a different perspective. From Red Rock Point, we were shooting directly across at the falls. The overall images were probably better from Lookout Point, but it was worth the hike down to shoot from Red Rock Point also.
We continued around the North Rim Drive to Grand View Point but quickly realized the only view was upriver to the east and the lighting was all wrong.
The clouds had followed the daily routine of filling the sky, so there was no reason to continue to Artist Point. We started back toward camp when we spotted three swans at Alum Creek. We parked, hiked up the road, and sat on a hillside to photograph the swans in the creek below. The swans were feeding on the plants on the creek bottom, so they'd put their head under the water, pull up the plants, and then return to their normal swimming position. This was fun to watch, but every time the swans pulled up the plants, their heads were covered with an ugly brown scum. It wasn't an attractive look even on birds as gorgeous and stately as swans. We're hoping to photograph them again when they're in the river.
As we were shooting the swans, I spotted a great blue heron flying across in front of us, so I was able to get a couple of frames of it in flight. When we walked back toward Ruby, we saw the heron "fishing" along the edge of the Yellowstone River. It was obviously stalking a fish. We quickly took a few images before it struck. When it stood up, it had a wriggling fish in its beak. After a minute of carefully shifting the position of the fish, it was finally parallel to the beak and the heron swallowed the fish whole.
As soon as we finished shooting the heron, it started raining, and we were a couple of blocks from Ruby. We made a run for it, but we both got wet. It only rained a few minutes, so we waited it out, dried off our camera gear, and drove back to camp for lunch.
The sky was overcast the rest of the afternoon, so we relaxed in the motorhome and tried to catch up on downloading, emails, news, etc. While we were sitting in the motorhome in the late afternoon, Carol saw a "fat squirrel" right in front of us at the edge of the woods. I couldn't believe it. It was a pine marten, one of the most secretive animals in the forest. They generally hunt squirrels in the treetops and are seldom seen. I've only seen one in my life, and that was in the winter in Sequoia. I grabbed my camera, but it had vanished into the forest.
The sky cleared up a bit shortly before sunset, so I drove up to Hayden Valley to shoot along the river. I only drove a few miles before I realized it was even cloudier to the north. I turned around and drove along the northeast shore of Yellowstone Lake. I made a few stops and watched some fishermen, but the lighting wasn't very good anywhere. The best shot may have been from Fishing Bridge looking toward Yellowstone Lake.
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Today was a good day. We got some good images of Yellowstone Falls, and watching the swans was fascinating.
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