White Water
Exploring the Beartoothsby Dan Hartman
Aug. 24, 2014
I took some of George Clokeys students from White Water on a walk-a-bout last week. We started out looking for the owl chicks from the Beartooth Nest. It had rained the night before and everything was soaked, which soon included our clothes! After searching the entire area for an hour or so, we found and more importantly heard nothing. This was strange as I had just found them quite easily two days ago. I'll have to expand my search next time.Undaunted, we headed on up in to the Bearthooths hoping to come across some mountain goats. Well, we didn't find them either.
Luckily, I had an ace in the hole.
Pika!
We climbed down through the rocks to position ourselves in the middle of a boulder field. Soon pika began popping out all around us. One even moved in close enough to sniff Bens shoe. During the next hour eveyone seemed to have close pika encounters.
Like I mentioned earlier, I was able to locate the great gray chicks last week. The female appears to be gone, which is common at this stage. The male will continue to feed the youngsters until they are ready to be on their own, probably sometime in late October.
Note: The surrounding mountains were dusted with snow this morning.
Photos
Sneaking In For A Shot
Pika
Sniffing Bens Shoe
Great Gray Chick
The Other Chick
Fungus
Butterfly
Ben