This is the second of my three galleries of elk pictures, you may also enjoy the first and third galleries. These pictures were taken in 2006 and 2007 in either Yellowstone or the Tetons.
As I started out the gravel road towards the main road, I noticed a bunch of people had pulled over to watch a distant elk herd. I wasn’t going to have time to go anywhere else since it was late in the day, so I decided to stay and watch the elk. However, I decided to choose a place much farther up the road, as I had a hunch the elk would move in that direction.
Sure enough, after waiting for a while, the females led the herd in my direction while the bull still ran around, bugling at other bulls in the distance and rounding up stray cows. He eventually followed the herd towards me, but I shot him from farther away when he was set against the beauty of the fall colors. It was getting really cold, so you can see his breath as he bugles to warn the other bulls away from his harem. And what a harem! It was two or three times larger than the others I had seen, this poor bull must have been exhausted.
It was a nice little reward at the end of the day, making me glad I had chosen to hike a strenuous trail when I hadn’t planned on it, and to have been lucky enough to have chosen the right place to be for when the herd came close to the road.
|
Last Call
I had just arrived in Yellowstone when I came across this bull near the Madison River. He had a much smaller group of females than another bull a little ways down the river. It was near the end of the fall rut and he was clearly exhausted, laying down in the meadow beside the river. Even when laying down with his head on the ground, his antlers stuck up and gave away his position. He never kept his head down for too long though, as eventually one of the other bulls in the area would bugle and he’d lift his head and call back.
I was dressed more for the day’s drive and not for the cold fall weather, so as the sun began to set my teeth began to chatter despite my winter coat. After spending an hour and half with this one bull, though, I finally got the look I wanted as he looked in my direction as he called out, nicely displaying his rack of antlers. I chose a vantage point to give me a similar background to the bull below (taken in a similar location the year before), with the alternating fields of light and dark brown. |
|
Last Stand
I was watching this bull and his harem at Yellowstone for quite some time. The rut was mostly finished so he was pretty calm (and likely pretty exhausted). He started out close to the road where I didn’t like the background, so I focused on the cows and calves instead, all the while hoping he’d venture out into the willow thickets which presented the background I wanted - the alternating light and brown strips of the thicket.
As I sat in the mud in a gentle rain, he eventually wandered to check on a cow that was laying in the grass between two willow thickets. I photographed the two as they nuzzled one another, but I also wanted a picture of the bull by himself, but he would never position himself quite right. He eventually stopped and to my good fortune, not only looked up, but had his mouth open. It looks like a menacing pose, like he’s been corralled into the thickets and is preparing to make his last stand, but it was actually a very peaceful scene and one of my favorite moments from the trip. |
|
Mystery
This youngster was a part of the herd of the bull above. I was lying on the wet and cold ground alternately photographing the two, the bull in his prime and the calf with his future before him. Part of the fun in photographing young animals lies in the cuteness of the little creatures, but I also like the mystery of where their life is headed. This one has survived it’s first summer and now will face its first winter.
If it survives into adulthood, it may not live quite as long as elk in other parts of the park. A ranger had stopped by and mentioned that he had participated in studies of wolf kills in the area, and one finding was that because of the high fluoride content of the water in this drainage, the bones of the adult elk were more brittle than normal. A broken leg can be a death sentence in the wild. I took these pictures literally at the end of my trip to Wyoming in the fall of 2006, it was time to pack up the cameras and start the trip home to Oregon right after these pictures were taken. A beautiful end to a beautiful trip. |
This year I visited at the tail end of September and into the first week of October. The fall colors had just hit their peak, I rarely saw moose, but caught the tail end of the elk rut. There isn’t much fighting amongst the bulls at this point, but still plenty of bugling, and you can visibly see how exhausted the bulls are.
Most of the animals I saw and photographed in Yellowstone were elk. While I was disappointed to not see them on the trails, I did spend some time with multiple herds between West Yellowstone and Mammoth. This female was part of a large herd near the Madison River. The bull was mostly obcured back in the trees, closely watched by the telephoto lenses of a small herd of photographers.
The cows and calves were more visible, however, so I hunkered down in the rain and focused on them. When this cow momentarily reached back to lick her fur, I was reminded of a dog curled up to sleep and I couldn’t resist the intimate portrait. While I find myself wishing Canon would add weather-proofing to it’s prosumer cameras each and every time I’m out in the rain, I do like the effect of the rain here, making the wet dark fur of her neck stick up like an untamed cowlick, and drops of rain visible along the lighter fur of her body.
|
Photographing Children
Most formal portraits of children are taken in a studio or a staged setting, with a staple of rubber duckies and cute phrases and wild gesticulations to get the child to look at the camera and smile.
I prefer photographing children in a more natural environment, and needed no toys or waving arms to get this child to smile. I’m just that good. |
|
Sense of Place
It’s usually pretty hard to provide a sense of place in a close-up portrait, but this intimate portrait of an elk cow strongly hints at Yellowstone with the burned and broken tree in the background. It was indeed taken near the Madison River in Yellowstone, she was part of a herd that was resting in the rain.
|
|
|
Rain
Photographing in the rain adds challenges, especially since my cameras aren't weather sealed, but I love the way it makes the fur of the elk stand up and out. I found it very relaxing to sit near this herd as they lounged about in the gentle rain.
|
|
Madison
An environmental portrait of a bull elk grazing beside the Madison River. The river attracts a variety of animals from elk to bison to bald eagles to fly fishermen.
|
|
No Telephoto Needed
One day in Yellowstone, I decided to walk around the thermal features in the Mammoth and Norris areas, taking small landscapes in places like the Artists’ Paintpots. Even though I wasn’t looking for wildlife, the wildlife found me.
Just a little ways off the boardwalk were a few elk, including a cow and her calf. The calf wanted to nurse so it reached underneath it’s mother and gave her a hard smack to get the milk flowing (I saw bison do the same hard head bump, the mothers didn’t seem to mind but I instinctively covered my nipples each time). I had my wide angle zoom out to photograph the thermal areas, but the elk were close enough that I didn’t need to switch to my telephoto to photograph this lovely little moment. |
|
Built-in Back Scratcher
I suppose his antlers would work a little better as a back scratcher if the tines were turned the other way round, but perhaps evolution had a different use in mind …
|
|
Elk Songs
Now look, I understand the desire to take your iPod with you wherever you go, believe me I do, but maybe that collar is just a little too tight …
(For the record, lest you think the Yellowstone rangers were guilty of animal cruelty, the radio collar may not be the most stylish but it was a good fit, the cow had just grabbed a mouthful of plants, and she just happened to stick her tongue out when I snapped the picture) |
|
Drizzle
A young elk bull eats during a light drizzle during the fall at Grand Teton National Park. He was walking with another young bull, they were both keeping a distant watch on the nearby harem of a mature bull.
|
|
Fitful Sleep
There were several aspects I wanted to capture in this picture. There’s a slightly comical aspect in that the sleeping bull is almost invisible save for his antlers which stick up out of the tall grass and completely betray his presence. The bull isn’t really trying to hide, but I wondered if he wouldn’t have preferred at that moment to be able to just take the antlers off while he slept, if only so he could lay his head wherever and however he liked.
I also wanted to convey the exhaustion the bulls feel at the end of the rut. He slept most of the time I watched him, but couldn’t resist raising his head and answering the call whenever another bull bugled in the distance. Fortunately all of the people watching him kept their distance so he was able to rest in the quiet periods. A couple of weeks before I visited, one of the bulls had its neck snapped while it was sparring with one of the other bulls. These fights usually aren’t fatal, but add in disease, predators, and the long winter, and I do wonder how many of the animals I see will still be around come spring. |