Wilder Alaska

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, leaving little time for daily trip reports. I’ve been enjoying the slow arrival of Spring in the outdoors with camera in hand, here are some photo highlights from recent outings:

Spent the evening in Cherry Creek S.P. – plenty of wildlife around including a red-tailed hawk (very close, but too many branches in the way), two far-off bald eagles, several coyotes and whitetail deer, but the muted winter light was just horrible for photography. I’m really ready for the spring to bring some sunshine, blue skies and color back to these grey and brown foothills.

Spent another nice afternoon at Chatfield with my wife – hiked in to the trees to look for the owl, after a half hour of searching I found it roosting about 20 feet up. The light was less than optimum, and there were too many branches in the way to get great shots. Spotted a ton of hawks, but other than that is was an uneventful yet still incredibly enjoyable evening.

Another 6-coyote day at Chatfield – from the Highline Canal to Fox Run, the song dogs were out in full force. One of the Plum Creek yearlings made an appearance, as well as the alphas and an unknown yote. The Catfish Flats female took down another goose, this time alone, just west of Kingfisher.

The male was about a half mile south of her, hunting voles on the far side of a row of trees, unaware of the entire thing. We watched her for a while, then finished the day with a couple of close hawks at Massey Draw.

Spent the late afternoon taking pictures of mule deer at Deer Creek, then Dan and I headed to Chatfield for sunset coyotes. Found the Plum Creek’s (male and female alphas, not sure where the 2 yearlings were) at their usual spot, in sight but way out of camera range in the blowing snow, so we hit the west side of the park. Caught the beautiful Catfish Flats couple (see Valentine’s Day trip report) out in the snow. These two are excellent hunters, this is the first time I’ve ever seen coyotes succeed at hunting geese. My coyote luck seems to be getting a little better, finally – spotted 6 of them today.

Attempted to drive up to the Rampart Range area with Dan, but turned around due to the snow storm. Spent the rest of the evening at Chatfield, trying our best to get shots of the only subjects readily available, red-tailed hawks in terribly low light. Saw a coyote, some whitetails, and the usual porcupine – all too far away to get decent shots. Another rough winter day…

Dan and I went to Daniels Park for bison, snow moved in and shots were horrible so we moved east to avoid the storm. Scouted around Castlewood Canyon S.P. and surrounding areas – saw a herd of elk (all bulls, too far away for any decent shots), a red fox and various hawks.