Grand Teton National Park April 2026

Last year was an exceptional year for photographing bears. We arrived on April 9th and on our first day in the park spotted bear 610 and her three two-year-old sub adults. They were feeding on a carcass of an elk near the Moran Entrance station. Two days late we drove up to Flag Ranch and Bruno, the dominant male Grizzly bear, was walking alongside the road. As he passed our car, we could see his eye looking at us, but he really didn’t care as he was heading south to Grand Teton National Park. This year we were staying in Jackson, and so it was only a short drive back to Moran. Entering the park, we stopped at all the places we saw grizzly bears, but they were not wanting their photos taken. Day one turned into day two through day nine and we never spotted any bears, (we did see grizzly bear tracks in snow near Coulter Bay. Luckily, there were other things to see. The elk were migrating early, due to the warm weather, so we changed our target from bears to birds. It was a good choice as we added two new birds for our life list.

The first was a very common bird, a song sparrow. It sang and perched in a short tree giving us a great opportunity for a picture. The next was a Red Breasted Nuthatch, identified by merlin’s sound recording, (a bird heard is a bird counted. We spotted numerous Bald Eagles, Ospreys, and took our best picture ever of a male and female Barrows Goldeneye.

They were exhibiting courtship behavior and were oblivious to our presence, (we were walking on the trail at Schwabacher Landing).

On another day we took a picture of a Belted Kingfisher.

As usual Kingfishers are hard to photograph, and this one flew every time I tried to get him in focus. He made the mistake of landing on top of a pine tree about one hundred yards away. I had our 600 mm zoom lens on and I took his picture.

We also saw American White Pelicans, Cormorants, and Great Blue Herons.

I did get a pretty good shot of a Mountain Blue Bird! We also saw a Red-Tailed Hawk in flight, and a Northern Harrier.

One of the birds, common but rarely seen, was a Great Horned Owl,(I have misplaced the picture). We hoped it was a Great Grey but you can clearly see the feathery ears, diagnostic of a Great Horned Owl.

We had to leave the Park to get maintenance done on our car. Now that it has been taken care of we are going to visit a museum in Idaho Falls and then return to Grand Teton National Park. This time it will be for ten more days of bear watching. The migrating elk cows have moved onto their calving places, so the bears can’t be too far behind. Till they calve, the bears will turn into cows and munch on grass and clover. They have over two hundred items on their diet. If you ever see a bear do not feed it! A Fed Bear is a Dead Bear. Once they get a taste of human food they will be captured and relocated. A second offense will result in the bear being euthanized.

Finally, we had to pass through a herd of Buffalo as they crossed the highway. Thats never a pleasant event. Clear skies Ps our friends Gordon and Babs were in New Mexico and a Black bear smelled the M and M’s in their BMW. It then broke into the car and destroyed it.