BALD EAGLE

Yellowstone national park is an incredible place to visit at any time of year, but I prefer it in winter, when there are fewer people around. Granted, you won't see any bears, but there is plenty of other wildlife there.

I visited to get a glimpse of the wolves in the Lamarr  valley- and a glimpse was unfortunately all I got, and that from a long, long distance. Not worth photographing, anyway. But just seeing these incredible animals was a huge privilege. I intend to go back to Yellowstone to try again at some point in the future. Wolves are a big favourite of mine.

Meanwhile, there was a lot to see there anyway, including bighorn sheep, numerous elk, some big moose, owls and this beautiful bald eagle. The sky was a picture-perfect cloudless blue for a single morning, and the eagle looked fantastic against it and those strikingly graphic branches.

In the week that I was there over new year, I don't think we saw another human visitor. It felt as though we had this massive park entirely to ourselves. Even Old Faithful was deserted. Marvelous stuff.