Yellowstone Sketches - 2016

This will just be a quick post to share some of the sketches I did on a recent trip to Yellowstone National Park.  Since the bison has just become the official national mammal, this one is a good place to start.

Bison are one of my favorite animals to sketch.

Springtime in Yellowstone wouldn't be complete without a few snow showers .... and sometimes a real snow storm.  This year we saw less snow than usual, but many more wildflowers.

Northern flickers can look quite drab, but when they flare their tail or wings, they have bright flashes of orange.  When we first arrived the aspen hadn't leafed out yet. The bare branches gave us lots of opportunity to watch two pairs of flickers deciding just where their territorial boundaries were going to be.  

This is one of my favorite sketches from the trip.  Its wildlife is simple -- a chipmunk -- but it comes from a spot where we frequently listen for birds in the early morning, or use as a lunch spot.  One of my big reasons for keeping a sketchbook is capturing the memories.

Sandhill cranes are such elegant birds.

And here is one of my favorite subjects:  an aspen trunk scarred when a bear climbed the tree years ago.

Three great horned owlets are crowed onto a rock ledge way above the Lamar River.  A red-tailed hawk first used this ledge.  This year, the owls have it.  While I was sketching a thunderstorm rolled in and I had to scurry into the car.  We saw no sign of the adult until the thunder and lightening started.  I'm not sure whether the adult flew back to the nest or had been hidden in the dark recesses of the crevice.

A pair of osprey are just startling a new nest.  Often they use the same nest from one year to the next. There was another nest nearby last year, but the tree fell over.  I suspect it is the same pair building this nest.

This is just a peek at what I've been up too.  I also brought home a lot of unfinished sketches and the raw material for some blog posts.