Lillian, a yearling female member of the Pipestone wolf family, went for a few long 'walkabouts' this winter when she was banished from the family circle while mating was going on. On one particular morning in March, she walked for 20 kilometres along the pavement until traffic started to pick up.
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| Wolf Yoga - "Lillian-style" |
Later that afternoon, she briefly appeared again and kept wandering along and rubbing her bum on the ground. When she was about 90 metres away from my car, she suddenly went into a full squat and dragged her butt along for a few metres, before lifting it off the ground into a perfect yoga pose. She held this pose for two full seconds, then got up and moseyed off into the trees.
Once she was gone and I could see her walking through a distant meadow, I got out and inspected the 'drag trail' and sure enough, about halfway along, a lovely foot-long tapeworm was mushed out onto the edge of the road!
The tapeworm explained all the bum scraping, but I never did figure out why she went into the yoga pose at the end. Any suggestions (keep it clean, ha-ha!)?
By the way, for any of you hoping to get out and do some early morning shooting in Banff over the next few months, be aware that the Bow Valley Parkway is closed from 6 pm to 9 am to provide grizzly bears with some critical, early season, undisturbed habitat, and is being patrolled regularly (as of May 1st) by an enforcement officer (warden) who is stopping anyone that's inside the closed portion of the parkway. This is a voluntary closure for now, however, Parks is making a concerted effort to ensure that everyone abides by it. Both myself and my friend and colleague Peter Dettling have chosen to respect this closure and we hope that all of you will, too.
Happy shooting!
John
Labels: photo of the day, wolf photography