Blue has always been my favorite color, which is probably why mountain bluebirds are among my favorite birds. As my wife will attest, they were one of the first things I started looking for on our recent Black Hills trip. We saw quite a few, including some recent fledglings. This male was taken using my car as a blind as most of these bluebirds are rather skittish.
It looks like I'm getting the stink eye from this bull bison. Good thing I was right by the car! One of the things I've learned about Custer State Park is you need to get off of the paved Wildlife Drive and go out on the gravel roads that criss-cross the prairie. On this particular morning, I had an entire herd of bison to myself. There were at least 150 head in the herd with numerous "red dogs." I was ever hopeful to get the little calves doing their chasing, bucking and generally being cute but alas, they had already grown to the point that this behavior was in their past. Darn! The other thing I have leaned is get there early as the crowds generally don't start showing up until after 8 or so.
