I was a Yellowstone Bear/Wolf Jam

I went out before dawn on Sunday to get some sunrise pictures of the fall Cottonwood trees in the Soda Butte Creek Valley. I parked in a pullout and walked maybe a 1/4 mile down to the stream, scouted some interesting comps. and set up my camera and tripod to wait for the sun to come over the mountain and light things up. As I waited, more and more cars parked alongside the highway and folks got out with their spotting scopes, binoculars, chairs, etc, eventually there were 20 - 30 cars and around 50 people. About an hour after sunrise I realized (somebody hadn't checked the ephemeris ) that it would be at least another hour before the sun got down to where I was, so I grabbed my tripod, walked back to my car and headed for another site. After an hour at the new site, I returned and was quite surprised to find all of the people gone. The lack of people made it clear that somehow I was the cause of all congestion. I think my wife has it right in that someone saw me looking in a particular direction and decided that I must be seeing, watching, or waiting for a bear or wolf that they couldn't see, but they were willing to wait for some action, because I must know what I was doing. (I've posted an image of the Cottonwoods in Landscape, taken after my return.)

Mark, back in the days when I did wildlife photos and had a really nice Nikon 35mm and a monopod mounted 300 f2.8 lens with either a 1.4 or 2.0 extender in use I cannot tell you how many times it stopped traffic. My family use to be amazed at how crazy folks were driving like idiots to pile into a one car turnout someplace that I'd stopped at.
In fact, you mention being at YNP, for me it was always GTNP just down the road so to speak.......

Evidently humans are a herding animal also. My wife and I were in the park last year just off the side of the road, I was photographing a couple of Sandhill Cranes in the timber. Several cars stopped and people seemed interested (at first). Most cars would stop in the middle of the road and asked what we were photographing. You could see their shoulders slump and a real look of disappointment when we'd tell them Sandhill Cranes.

Mark, I was in Yellowstone for the first time back in May and was impressed with the abundance of wildlife there but the scenery was quite spectacular as well. Have to say I found it rather amusing at first whenever I would stop to take a landscape pic, seeing cars slow down and the drivers shrugging their shoulders at me as they passed. Apparently many people find it inconceivable that someone would go to Yellowstone to look at the scenery. After awhile it became quite annoying as I couldn't even pull over for a rest without a vehicle whipping in behind me to see what I was looking at. That was in May. Can't even begin to fathom how crazy it must get there in summer.

My wife and I were in the Everglades on the Anhinga trail. On the right side of the trail, walking in, I saw some really nice swamp lilies with a great background and decided to photograph them. I was down on the edge of the water on my knees and my wife was on the trail watching me. Every person that came by stopped and tried to see what I was looking at. They would ask my wife and when she would tell them I was taking a picture of a flower They would get a disappointed look on their faces, shake their heads and walk on. Many people miss so much natural beauty looking for the bears and wolves that they will probably never see anyhow.

Hi Mark

Often when I am on a beach with my tripod mounted camera with wide angle lens, passersby assume I am birdarazzi and point out to me an osprey or pelican or hairy chested nut scratcher. I smile, nod, and thank them, hoping they won't move into the frame of the image I'm composing.

I was in Yellowstone a few weeks ago and was blown away by the amount of traffic on the 100s of miles of roads within the park, even in September. Had the same experience with cars stopping to see why we were pulled over. We call them Lemmies, as in "Lemme see what you're seeing/doing." It can get quite hazardous actually on the narrow roads with people suddenly stopping.

We were stopped in a very large traffic jam at one point for no apparent reason with lots of people out of their vehicles running around with cameras/phones/etc. I assumed it had to be a unicorn vs. grizzly death match and when we got to the head of the line I asked what the attraction was and was told that someone had spotted a coyote! Now where I live we often see coyotes anywhere that is just slightly wild, on the bike trails, even on the greens on the golf courses. Had a good chuckle about the Lemmie effect there.