Mountain Goats and Meteor Showers

 

   We took a drive to our son’s house to deliver some Gulf shrimp, and after a nice visit we headed back to Star Valley. The summer traffic is quickly increasing but you still never know when you are going to be presented with a wildlife moment. So after traversing the Hoback Valley we turned down the Snake River Canyon.

     As we passed some of the biggest whitewater rapids on the Snake River, I warned Renita of animals in the road and luckily we missed the nine plus mountain goats that were feeding on the grass alongside the highway. Turning around we were able to safely stop and take some images and it’s the closest we have ever been to wild goats.

     It’s the first time we have seen them in the canyon but we were aware that they were migrating into Wyoming. It’s actually causing concern to the Game and Fish Commission here as they may carry disease that is transmittable to the bighorn sheep, which are struggling, (the sheep here suffer from diseases and parasites from grazing domestic sheep, and don’t do well unless they have sufficient graze).

    So we took some images and watched as the goats retreated up the sheer canyon walls. After arriving back at Star Valley our next goal was to actually stay up for the new meteor shower. Of course I fell asleep but Renita woke me at midnight, (the best time to see meteors is from midnight to an hour before sunrise).

     The skies here are about as perfect as you can get and the Milky Way stood out. The visible magnitude here was so good that we could see all the stars of the constellation Ursa Minor, (the Little Dipper). Writing down the time, 12:14 am, we sat back and watched and waited and waited and waited…… A single meteor crosses the sky in the next fifteen minutes. It wasn’t even from the expected radiant which is the path of the old comets tail.

     Going back inside we waited till 2 am only to see that clouds had moved in and obscured the heavens. Hopefully there was a burst of falling stars visible in others places in North America. Here it was a complete bust. At least for a bit we had clear skies.