Three days ago I was up in Yellowstone National Park, sitting on a rocky
outcrop eating my lunch when the Robins in the trees below started alarm
calling. I looked up the wrong direction and from the opposite way my head
was turned a goshawk zoomed by from behind me so close I startled, dropping
my sandwich into the midst of a bunch of ants, who must have thought that
their prayers had been answered. The hawk was gone in an instant, no
apology for my lost lunch.

I also watched with anticipation as a coyote snuck up on a grouse. The
grouse held motionless until the exact last second and as the coyote pounced
the grouse flew, just a nick and a feather from the coyotes leap.

As Olaus Murie said, sit still in Yellowstone just about anywhere and
something interesting will happen.

Rob Sandelin
Naturalist, Writer