It was a great week. Last Wednesday hiked up Table Mountain for some of the best views in the Tetons. Spent all day Saturday with the owl. Sunday had a great hike and found some moose. Monday morning followed a pack of wolves and this morning had a bugling bull elk almost walk right up to me.
Fall colors in the trees are just about a week shy of being at the peak. The temps have been in the low 30's upper 20's in the morning. A couple of low areas the leaves are now brown. The elk are very vocal at sunrise and sunset. Once the moon comes back they should stay active all night.
The valley has a thick cover of smoke from the fires so I've been doing non-Teton landscapes in the morning. On Monday I hiked back to a big old tree. While shooting it wolves began to howl and they were close. I circled around and found two of them, one black and one gray. I could hear five different howls. But the others were maybe a half mile away. I stay with them for a couple of hours before they hit a thick tree line and disappeared.
The owl I saw in a tree as I was hiking into an area off trail. Over the next couple of hours without approaching it became use to me being around it. Then I slowly worked in closer, maybe 3 feet then wait 15-20 minutes and then another 3 feet and so on until I was almost at the base of the tree. It liked to sit on low branches so I was able to get some nice close and clear shots. I was also happy I could move around and work in the fall colors for a background.