Animals at Yellowstone - Grizzly Bear

On our drive back from Lamar Valley we went over a very high mountain pass on a winding, narrow road with no guard rails. I was concentrating on the road and letting Betty enjoy the view when we came upon another traffic slow down. We think it was for a grizzly bear down the slope of the mountain side, but I was not willing to stop. I wanted to get down off the mountain top. Later I was having regrets as I was afraid we might have missed our one chance to see a grizzly bear in the wild.

Fortune was with us, and the next day we came upon another traffic jam with hoards of people on the side of the road, many with large spotting scopes set up on tripods. This was it. Up on the hillside was a grizzly bear that had just killed an elk.

People stopped to watch a grizzly bear up on the hillside

It was a challenge to get a good photo given the distance and the trees that were in the way. You can make out the teddy bear ears in this shot taken at 20X optical zoom. As with all my pictures, you can click on the picture to see a larger version.

Grizzly bear partial head shot at 20X optical zoom
Ursus arctos

Below is a great head shot of the grizzly bear, but I was using the digital zoom on top of the optical zoom, so the image is a bit fuzzy.

Grizzly bear head shot using digital zoom

The grizzly bear got up and moved over to protect its kill when some birds started feeding on it.

Grizzly bear moving over to protect its kill from some birds

At this point the grizzly seemed to have settled down and was not going to be moving for a while. I took one last photo before we moved on. Here you can seen the ears to the left and his back covered with a sheen. We were told by someone who had been observing the bear for a while through a powerful spotting scope that the sheen was from the blood from the elk it killed.

The crowds at Yellowstone were very nice. While I was taking photos, one of them let Betty look at the bear through his spotting scope.