Grand Teton National Park.

I arrived at Grand Teton bright and early on Tuesday morning hoping to nab a good campsite at one of the campgrounds in the park.  My brother and nephew were flying into Jackson Hole that evening and I needed to have everything set up by the time they arrived.  I finally found something decent at the Signal Mountain campground and spent the rest of the day looking for animals.

I found a group of pelicans along Oxbow Bend near Jackson Lake Junction.

They looked great in front of the mountains.

A couple of wigeons flew in...


I headed south along the main road and stopped for some pictures of the Tetons..


Oh and this cowboy of course...


Next I drove down to Mormon Row... Found this swallow:


I believe it's a Northern Rough-winged Swallow.

Further down the road I came across some bison...

This young one was having trouble keeping up as mom kept walking across the field..


I headed back down the road to see what I could find..  I stopped in a shady spot and watched some baby robins begging...


After a minute I noticed some bright blue mixed in with the robins...

A Mountain Bluebird!  Such a pretty bird...

Back at the beginning of the road are some abandoned buildings including a couple of small houses and barns..


There were lots of creatures around.  Cliff swallows love the eaves...


I also found what I think is a female Mountain Bluebird (and several more males). 


I definitely saw some birds I just wasn't sure about:

Yet another mystery flycatcher...

This next one I'm guessing is a Brewer's Sparrow?
Though now that I'm staring at it, the bill might be too light.  Ack there are too many sparrows.

I watched this magpie for a bit... I'm not sure what he was doing here..


He moved on after awhile to check out some puddles.


These gorgeous moth-things were all over the muddy areas..


After leaving here it was almost time to head to the airport.  Luckily I left early because a small crowd was gathered on the bridge at Moose Junction over the Snake River...

I guess the junction was named for a reason!  My first moose!  It was the perfect ending to the day...

Comments

  1. You've been lucky to see so many cool new things. Many things I have never seen before either. Wonderful photos!

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  2. Hi Jen, the moth thing is a butterfly. Casually referred to as "blues", they are members of the family Lycaenidae. Yours may be a Silvery blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) but I can't be sure without seeing the ventral side of the wings.

    They consume minerals and moisture from damp dirt, rocks, guano, scat, etc.

    There are several species of blues and their kin in the Yellowstone area. There are many other kinds of butterflies (and moths) too.

    If you're careful and patient you may be able to coax blues or other butterflies onto your fingertip by slowly and delicately putting your fingertip under their 'nose' and pushing gently toward them so that they climb onto your finger. Be careful not to damage their proboscis if they have it unfurled for feeding.

    The butterflies that feed on dirt, rocks, scat, etc. also like the salt on skin.

    Kris

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  3. Looks like found a Vesper Sparrow based on the white eye ring and white malar stripe below the eye. Great photos!

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