American Bison Gallery #2

This is the second of my two American bison galleries. You can find the first gallery here. All of these pictures were taken at Yellowstone National Park in the fall of 2005 or 2007.

Confident and Serene Q: Why did the buffalo cross the road? A: It didn’t, it stopped in the middle and posed for pictures. Buffalo own the roads at Yellowstone and they know it. I had gone to hike the Storm Point Trail but discovered the trail was surrounded by a large herd of bison. Bison are normally pretty comfortable around people at Yellowstone, but they had their young with them and I didn’t want to disturb them and decided to hike the trail another time. While I headed back to the car, a few buffalo came out across the road, including this one who just stopped in the middle of the road. With the head nicely angled to the sun and a nice backdrop of out-of-focus blue sky, green trees, and brown grasslands, I couldn’t resist taking a picture before it finally got moving again and finished crossing the road.

Three Browns I like the three shades of brown between the dry grasses, the dark fur of the bison’s head, and the lighter fur of the body.

Time Stands Still For No Calf A bison calf suckles from its mother near Roosevelt. This calf was smaller and less developed than most of the others, it was fall and while snow and ice were elsewhere in the park, this area was still clear. Soon enough, the little one will get exposed to Yellowstone’s long winter.

There’s a cardinal rule to never get between a mother and her child, no matter the species, so when I came across these calves at the periphery of a large herd blocking a trail near Slough Creek, I gave them all a wide berth. The herd was spread out and given the late hour I abandoned any ideas about further hiking and instead set up the big lens for some pictures. I enjoyed watching the antics of the two calves until they started walking nonchalantly in my direction. Nothing aggressive mind you, but I kept one eye on them on one eye on their parents as I backed up with each advance. I kept my distance and the adults barely batted an eye, the calves eventually lost interest and went back to their play and I watched them until they got tired and went back to rest with the others.

Standing Proud A bison calf on a small ridge above the Yellowstone River in the Hayden Valley, with the evergreens and hills visible on the far side of the river.