A Dream Come True

When Philips first taught me the delights of extended career breaks, I bought a biiiig lens with a view to bagging myself a wolf. The lens was stolen before I managed to leave San Francisco. Even though it was covered by insurance I didn't have the heart to get a replacement.

Last year I finally bought a lens of a similar size again. The main reason was to get better wildlife shots in general, especially in Costa Rica. Once I was back in the US and travelling around I started to think maybe I should give the wolf another go.

In March this year I headed for Yellowstone hoping to see some wolves. And I did, but they were always along way away. March turned out to be a good to get into the dramatic lives that these wonderful creatures lead. This is because the National Park has teams of watchers out monitoring them and they will tell you the stories.

So this was one of my first photo(s)...

The big dots are buffalo and the smaller ones are wolves. So that trip was more about wolf behaviour than any face to face experience. I spent that day watching the wolves tour a valley and test out the bigger prey and eventually kill an elk. That elk became dinner for other wolves, eagles, ravens, coyotes and more. An interesting insight into the impact of an apex predator like the wolf. I should blog about that trip properly.

So heading north to Alaska everyone one who looked like they might know where I'd see a wolf was inundated with questions.

Nobody suggested doing the Dalton Highway for this reason, I did that mainly to see the Arctic Ocean. So when, on the way back, I saw this guy trotting down the road, I made such alot of noise he turned around to see what was going on.

He allowed me to follow him around for about half an hour. At some point I got out of the car to get a better view and he took off immediately.

A wonderful experience, and like I said a dream come true. I'm not sure how to top that now.