Wildlife

The main reason we went to the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park to camp was because we were hoping to see some moose. The last time we went to the park we saw a cow and calf on this side and we had heard that it is very common to see them. We were not disappointed. We saw a total of 8, 4 cows, 2 bulls, and 2 calves.

These first two pictures are of the first 2 moose that we saw. We went for a walk at Coyote Valley Trail and at the end of the loop the cow and calf were feeding. It was a little scary when the baby entered the river as we were right on the other bank and I was afraid he was going to cross--but he stayed in the river. It was the middle of the afternoon so the lighting was better than on the other pictures that were early morning or evening.

This is the best picture of a bull moose--we saw him the last morning on our drive out. We also had a cow and calf right in the campground by the river the night before and saw 2 cows and a bull cross the road on Saturday morning.

Elk are common everywhere in the park and it is very rare to go to the park and not see some. We saw some everyday that we were there. Here are the best pictures. There were some small bulls in the herd but we never saw any big ones.

We didn't see as many deer--and they tended to run more so getting pictures were harder. This one we saw while hiking back from Adam's falls.

We believe this is an eagle. I saw him fly into a tree by the river while we were hiking Monarch Lake. After watching him he flew down to the river and came up with a fish (you can see him hanging on to it) then flew right above me. Unfortunately the picture where he was right in front of me focused on the trees behind so the bird is all fussy.

And of course there are chipmunks everywhere!