August 14, 2011 Mountain Goat Nanny And Kid in Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming
Mountain Goat Nanny And Kid
Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming, USA
Canon EOS 1D Mk IV, 500 f4 & 1.4x III, 1/250 sec, f8, ISO 400
Image taken on August 13, 2011.
Yesterday was a good day for wildlife photography along the Beartooth Highway. In the morning, I photographed some really cooperative American pika gathering food near some fantastic weathered and lichen-covered rocks. In the evening, we finally found some mountain goats. We had been looking for them since we arrived because we had seen them on our previous visit, but so far on this visit, we hadn't seen them. They were in a nice wildflower-filled meadow above tree line not too far from the road, and we spent a little more than an hour with them as they foraged and then chewed their cud. There was a nice thin cloud layer which created some wonderful diffuse light, and for the most part we had the goats all to ourselves — it doesn't get much better than that!