We got up around 5:45 — a lot earlier than usual. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping, and we left in the Jeep around 6:15.

I had Clif Bars for breakfast while driving.

We went to Cameron Pass to photograph the bull moose that we photographed last night. As we approached the pass, a big bull moose was out in a large willow patch feeding. We parked the Jeep in the parking lot at the top of the pass, and there was a slightly smaller bull moose and cow lying down among some wildflowers (left) — fantastic! The bull moose we photographed last night was nearby too. I went to photograph the big bull moose out in the large willow patch, and he was huge — probably the biggest bull moose I've ever seen in the lower 48! I was able to get some nice shots of The Big Guy, but they weren't as interesting as the image of the slightly smaller bull among the wildflowers. While I was photographing him, the two other big bulls came out into the same willow patch, and then a small bull moose came out too. J saw a cow with calf at the far edge of the willow patch. It was definitely a hotbed of moose activity this morning.
We returned to the RV around 9:00 and I photographed a friendly Golden-Mantled Squirrel near our boondocking spot (below left). Then I set up a natural perch for our resident female Rufous Hummingbird. She's been perching on our hummingbird feeders so she can guard her stash, and I thought she'd look much better perched on an aspen branch (below right) instead of the clear plastic hummingbird feeder support.


I finally went back inside the RV around 10:00. I downloaded the images I took this morning then I downselected them in iView. Then I downselected the images I took last night some more in Capture One (C1). I selected and processed two images for the blog.

I had lunch around 12:15 and read through the rest of the July Popular Photography. I made a batch of my chili then worked up a blog entry. I processed some images for a stock submission.

We had dinner early at 4:35 of my chili, and it had considerably more kick than usual.

We left in the Jeep around 5:20.

We returned to Cameron Pass. We didn't see any moose, so we went up Long Draw Road. It was too breezy to photograph the wildflowers along the stream, so we kept going to look for moose. We saw a mid-sized bull feeding in a willow patch and watched him for a while before moving on.

We headed back towards Cameron Pass and stopped shortly before reaching it to photograph the four bull moose that we had seen in the morning. My favorite image is of The Big Guy (left) looking right at me.

We left the bull moose after a bicyclist told us about a cow and calf on the other side of the pass. We found the cow and calf, but they weren't in a great position to photograph them. Because the light was getting low, we started to head back to the Jeep. That's when J spotted a cow with twin calves and a young bull heading towards us. Unfortunately, they were down at the bottom of the draw, which meant there was even less light on them and the angle was even worse. We mostly just watched them for a while before we left.

It was a great way to end a spectacular day with the moose. We saw 16 moose altogether — more than we've ever seen in one day before.
We returned to the RV around 8:25. I downloaded the images I took tonight then downselected them in iView. Then I started to downselect the images from this morning in Capture One (C1).