I Love Bark

Moose-Wilson Road, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park is a terrific place for landscapes, which is why I love going there. I never go looking for wildlife ,but many others do. The rule of thumb when looking for wildlife is to look for them early in the morning and the hours approaching dusk. Another is to look for other cars that are pulled over at the side of the road for no apparent reason. That usually means that there has been a wildlife sighting.  

On my photo tour to the park in July, our tour leader, Jeff Clow, was driving back and forth on Moose-Wilson Road (a favorite area for spotting wildlife), scouting. Just when we were ready to give up, he spotted this beaver in the underbrush. We piled out, and before you know it, there were probably 10 cars there within 5 minutes (there must be some communication network that I am not aware of). Despite the crowd of people and photographers, the beaver was only interested in eating the bark off of tree branches to be used in building his dam. It was quite amazing to see how fast he could get the branch clean as a whistle.