First Wildlife Adventure
I've never really done wildlife photography (mainly because of lack of opportunity), but my husband and I recently celebrated our 40th anniversary with a trip to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. One of the things we did was schedule a photography tour at Grand Teton NP. I had wanted to shoot some landscapes and my husband wanted to shoot wildlife. I am a semi-serious amateur and my husband generally will tag along with me and take a few pics if I give him a spare camera. I've been trying to get him away from the "auto" setting, lol. (This photography tour helped him a lot in that area.) Anyhoo...the day of our tour ended up being cold, overcast, and rainy (in August), so it was a no-go for me and landscapes, so I set up to shoot wildlife as well. I am so glad I did! I shoot with a Canon 5D MKIII and I have a Canon 6D MKII that my husband uses. I put the Sigma 150-600 lens on the camera for him and I used my Canon 100-400 mm lens, so we were not close to any of the animals.
The damp, overcast day was perfect for wildlife. There were hardly any other people out in the rain, but plenty of animals. We saw a lot of elk, pronghorn, and moose. Here are a few of my favorites:
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My husband had so much fun on this outing that he wanted me to schedule one while we were at Yellowstone, but I wasn't able to get that done. We did go out on our own though. We drove through Lamar Valley and did see a lot of bison, some deer, one bear, and a bald eagle . The eagle was flying and we weren't able to get a picture of him, but it was wonderful to see him nonetheless.
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My husband has now been bitten by the wildlife photography bug, so we plan more adventures in the future. 
Sherry Pollett
Comments
It looks like you had a good day!
My favorites are 1 and 3, awesome!
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Lucky you that you now have a spouse who shares your passion. 1,3, and 7 for me. Can't go wrong with a bear eating berries!
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I'm with 1,3, and 7 as well. If a person can't have a fantastic time at the Tetons and Yellowstone...well, something is wrong with them.
Wildlife photography is like the borg - it WILL absorb you. Some of my first attempts at wildlife shooting were pronghorn antelope in the Badlands National Park over a decade ago. Be careful, soon you will be chasing bear, elk, eagles, deer, otters, and wading birds and songbirds. DAMHIK And that's only on this continent, and there are several more to explore.
My wife gradually had been accompanying me chasing critters over the years so much, she had gotten pretty darn good at it too. We just returned from southern Texas where we saw cara cara, Harris hawks, and javalina. I no longer can buy one of any photo item, I purchase them by pairs.....
A little longer trip than Yellowstone is the Alcan highway to Alaska - still in North America - lots of cool bears, elk, moose, and caribou.
Do not go to Africa - you will find you cannot only go once - it will absorb you.
Welcome to the wildlife shooters clan 😎
I love shooting wildlife in the rain too, especially wet muddy eagles.....
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Thank you all for commenting!
My husband has always generally been a good sport in regards to my photography hobby. Though he hasn't "really" been interested, he's been willing to accompany me on occasion when I insist on finding wildflowers or have seniors to shoot. He never wanted to shoot on his own, but I eventually wore him down. I guess I had to find a subject that interested him and it's quite apparent that is wildlife. My plan at the moment is to retire from my day job next spring. My husband retired this year. We plan to celebrate our retirements with a trip to Alaska, hopefully next summer. We want to visit as many of the national parks there as we can, but I especially want Katmai. I'm going to try for the 2023 lottery for the lodge at Brooks Falls. If I get that, we will wait until 2023 to go. Otherwise, we'll keep our plans for 2022 and just make a day trip of Katmai. Either way, that should be an epic trip that should go a long way toward satisfying the need to photograph more wildlife.
Sherry P.