It was real warm in Gardiner (33 degrees or so), but you wouldn’t know it if you were in Yellowstone. Yellowstone hovered around 1 degree for most of the morning. The hoar frost sure put on quite a show covering everything in sight.
I wanted to show a close up of what I mean by hoar frost. Hoar frost forms when the objects themselves have heat losses into open skies that allow them to become colder then the actual air itself.
Our new bird for the day was an American dipper. There were a handful in the Lamar Valley following the stream bed. It’s awesome to watch them duck their heads under the water and then go for a swim only to return to the ice edge.
Our exciting moment today was a coyote we actually saw earlier in the day. He was trotting along the roadside, but we couldn’t stop to photograph him or want to put him in danger. We found the same one doing the same thing, but in a much more open spot at the end of the day. We went past him and waited for him to come our way. After seeing us he soon hopped into the foot high snow looking for a meal. An awesome way to spend the day as the clouds were making their move inward.
It is no joke when I tell you how close these elk were. he may look like she is on a ridge off in the distance, but this was shot one handed as we were exiting mammoth springs using my wide angle lens. It goes no further then 50mm! Dina actually had an elk come right up to the window, haha. I am still kicking myself I didn’t have the video camera running.
Oh and I used Live View to reach past Dina to take the image. My first official use for it besides some low level macro work.
The river following the northern entrance to the park has an amazing flow to it. This is just one of the many angles I photographed. Simply set up the tripod, stopped down my aperture and used timer mode in place of a shutter release. Also remember your polarizer! Many know that overcast skies are ideal for water feature photography, but it gives a nasty silver tint. Use that polarizer to reveal the waters true color!
(Click the image for a larger view)
With all the traveling we’ve been doing I have realized I had very few panoramas this year. This image does no justice to Hayden Valley, but I will do my best over the next few days. It is so vast and deep that it becomes mesmerizing.
