Spring Into Summer, 2012

On the last Monday of Spring 2012, I visited the National Bison Range. It was a day for the birds. I had never seen or heard so very many gray catbirds in one evening before.

Gray catbirds everywhere!

It seemed I was stopping for birds every 10-15 yards. It’s a good thing I was going so slow and stopping so frequently, or I would have likely missed this well hidden great horned owl.

I also enjoyed the abundance and variety of wild flowers.

Among the deer I saw that evening was this mule deer buck with fibromas. From what I read up on fibromas to caption this photo, those tumor / wart like growths on this young buck (he’s a spike) are called papillomas, fibromas, or papillofibroma, depending on the kind of tissue infected, but all three types of growth are caused by viruses.

On the day of Summer Solstice, I took an evening drive to check on the camas bloom at Packer Meadows. I found only the early bloomers had yet opened, while most of the flowers were still buds.

Leaving Packer Meadows, I headed for Lily Lake, hoping snow drifts wouldn’t block my path. Along the way, I enjoyed larkspur and bluebells in abundance.

I had to negotiate around/through some snow drifts to make it to the top of the pass and Lily Lake, but I was able to make it. I don’t think that would have been the case a week earlier. There, I found that glacier lilies and trillium, both of which are species I photographed at lower elevation in April, were just starting to bloom.