Icons of the North

Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks need no introduction for wildlife photographers. This landscape is both the American Alps and the Serengeti, rolled into one; a wilderness where where predators and prey still play out their ancient rhythms in the largest intact ecosystem in all of the Northern Hemisphere. But while most photographers come here chasing the diversity of Yellowstone’s megafauna, this workshop takes a different path. It narrows its focus to two of the most elusive and iconic species in the lower 48: moose and great gray owls.

Late October, the final week before Yellowstone’s interior roads close, marks an extraordinary and often overlooked window of time. The crowds are gone, the air turns crisp, and the snows are beginning to accumulate across the mountains. Bull moose are transitioning out of the rut and toward early winter browse. After nearly a month of battle, these brutes begin to gather in numbers for safety from predators as their lick their wounds. But just because the rut is over doesn’t mean that old rivalries are forgotten. The hormones that fueled a complete obsession with breeding and fighting just weeks before still linger. And bull moose can be found sparing with each other throughout the day - something that is rarely seen, let alone photographed, during the rut.

With winter just around the corner, great gray owls intensify their hunting this time of year. For these owls, the early snows of autumn bring about lean times. Great gray owls are no stranger to life in the boreal forests, and their adaptations for hunting red-backed voles in deep snow is the stuff of legend. But until a subnivean zone forms beneath snow, which requires at least 8 inches of stable snow pack, these birds must work very hard to make a living. Late fall, therefore, often provides wildlife photographers one of the most productive times of the year for finding and photographing these birds across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

By focusing entirely on two subjects, we create space for something that’s increasingly rare in modern wildlife photography: depth.

Professional wildlife photographers and natural history cinematographers all approach their craft in this manner, hyper focused on specific species when in the field. But this is not to the exclusion of other opportunities that present themselves, of course. Grizzly bears are in hyperphagia and working to consume 30,000 calories a day, bighorn sheep are just beginning to descend from the lofty perches atop mountains, elk have flooded across Jackson Hole by the thousands, pronghorn are beginning their migration and are on the move, and mule deer are entering their rut.