Beautiful pictures from Yellowstone NP! I was just there on August 25th - I'll have to post some of my wildlife pictures soon. I didn't see as much wildlife or small birds as I had hoped (of course it was a Saturday in the height of summer) but I saw a lot of waterfowl including Barrow's Goldeneye, Trumpeter Swan, Northern Shoveler, Common Merganser, Redhead, and about four others.
I saw two females with broods of ducklings along Gull Point Drive, and six adults in the backwater pond at Mary's Bay When you enter Gull Point Drive immediately south of Bridge Bay, the road will follow the shoreline for about a quarter of a mile, then it curves slightly left away from the shoreline and you have water on both sides of the road for about a quarter of a mile. In that stretch of road, I saw 10 or twelve Mallards including a female with a brood of 6 ducklings, two female Redheads together with 14 ducklings between them, and three or four Green-winged Teal that were already in eclipse plumage. These birds were all between the road and the shoreline in a shallow, cut-off bay. There were also three Barrow's Goldeneyes and two Common Mergansers out farther in the lake on the other side of the road. There were a lot of waterfowl the day that I was at Yellowstone - especially along the Yellowstone River near the confluence of Alum Creek. Combining Yellowstone Lake, the Yellowstone River, and Alum Creek, I saw about 24 Mallards plus two broods of half-grown ducklings, about 35 Northern Shovelers including two broods of nearly grown ducklings, 18 American Wigeon plus three half-grown broods, at least 22 Green-winged Teal, 4 Gadwall, 3 Northern Pintail, 54 Barrow's Goldeneye, 49 Lesser Scaup including a brood of 4 ducklings, 17 Common Mergansers, 7 Ruddy Ducks, one Trumpeter Swan (the Mary's Bay pond), and 78 Canada Geese.
Those were some good sightings. If you like waterfowl you should visit North Dakota. It's the Prairie Pothole Region and there are waterfowl in spades.
I do need to make a trip to North Dakota - I've only been there once and wasn't able to do any birding! I hear great things about the Prairie Pothole Region and there are a fair number of rails and songbirds there as well.
