Day 4 - A Couple More on Blacktail Plateau

I just had to take a picture of Tom's van, our daytime home for the better part of five days. It was the perfect vehicle for coolers, backpacks, tripods and camera equipment. It also, somehow, perfectly fits Tom's personality. I can't really explain it but there it is... It's a "throwback" in the best possible way.

Here is one more photo I like with that really photogenic tree. How many times has this tree had its picture taken?!?! The side lighting in this photo creates some nice long shadows and, if you click on this picture you'll get a better view of the almost invisible background showing another lit hillside in the distance.


After this photo stop, we moved on to a pullout near Tower where you can look down on an osprey nest. The parents had three chicks at one point. Now there were just two. This is not uncommon at all. Survival of the fittest, you know...

We watched the chicks and one parent for a long time waiting for the other parent to bring back a fish from the river. Unfortunately this never happened. We did see the 2nd parent but he or she had failed to bring back breakfast for the little ones. We hoped to photograph this mealtime in the nest.

After well over an hour, we decided to move onto Lamar. It was interesting to watch the helpless and growing chicks in the nest but I'm afraid we didn't see the feeding today. Here is one photo showing a parent landing on the nest. The chicks are difficult to see. Oh well. We tried but only Tom and Bill were going to get a good photo here since they have the big 500mm and 600mm lenses. Our 300mm lenses just couldn't reach them.