A beautiful Yellowstone coyote, but can you spot the other critter?
I discovered this in the spring of 2023, when I was part of a crowd observing a cinnamon-colored black bear and her cubs below a highway embankment.
I briefly looked behind me, marveling at the size of the traffic jam, and beyond the vehicles, opposite the highway, a coyote trotted along virtually unnoticed.
I was amused so I clicked a few photos before turning my attention back to the bears. It wasn't until later that I noticed a smaller critter in the image, observing the coyote.
Can you spot the critter in the top image? (Answer below.)
Soon afterward, because vehicles littered the highway and tourists had begun to creep closer to the bears, bear-management specialists sprung into action.
They ordered everybody back to their vehicles and to leave the area, a process that lasted about 25 minutes.
I didn't mind because I knew that in late May in Yellowstone's northern range, there would be lots of sightings, and I had already seen grizzly bears before this sighting.
Not long after the cinnamon black bear sighting, I stopped at a small traffic jam and watched as another black bear descended a slope toward the highway.
Again, I looked behind me and up on the ridge, several mountain goats maneuvered in and out of sight.
They were too far for me to capture decent images with my 400-millimeter lens, but I included one in this post.
But it was well east of this spot, near Tower-Roosevelt Junction, that I experienced my closest bear encounter.
I found a small parking space just north of the junction, near a marsh, and hiked briefly up the road, peering into the forest.
About 10 minutes passed before a momma black bear with two cubs appeared on the roadside in front of me. I was too close and momma bear shot me a warning glance.
I took a few steps backward and she resumed grazing before crossing the road to allow her cubs to climb a tree.
My sightings log for three days spent mostly in the northern range included 14 individual bears, the mountain goats, dozens of pronghorn and bison and, of course the coyote and the smaller critter watching the canine.
The critter, either a squirrel or prairie dog, is circled in the image posted above.
–Our first post on this topic was published in June 2023.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: A beautiful Yellowstone coyote, but can you spot the other critter?
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