The buffaloes are easy to spot on the plain, most of them are lying in the grass, some are standing by the meandering river, a few are grazing. In your mind's eye, you can imagine what the huge herds of buffalo must have looked like before they were slaughtered en masse, before the Plains Indians were deprived of their livelihood.

What you can also see on the left edge of the picture are the cars making their way along the road through the wilderness, on the hunt for encounters with the wildlife for which Yellowstone National Park is famous.

For wildlife encounters, peculiarities have developed that visitors quickly get the hang of. If you see a line of cars, this is a sign that wildlife has been spotted. Small conversations are held to clarify what there is to see. You get into position with your own camera and - according to safety instructions of the Yellowstone staff - you stay with the car and use it as a safe place to observe wildlife.

We quickly learn to use the car in this way. Pragmatically, we say goodbye to the romantic notion of solitary o;-road encounters and trade them in for real encounters with animals close to the road.

However, we also learn how enthusiastic visitors to the national park are about getting close to the mighty buffalo when they use the road. For a brief moment, visitors defy safety regulations in pursuit of an intimate moment with this magnificent wild animal.

We join the crowd of excited onlookers who have left their cars in the convoy to experience and photograph the animals up close. We enjoy the pleasure of observing and participating in this encounter with nature. After all, we are trained in participant observation. We hope to experience such spectacles. Spectacles that we don't even know exist until the moment we witness them.