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.
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Drizzle
A young elk bull eats during a light drizzle during the fall. He was walking with another young bull, they were both keeping a distant watch on the nearby harem of a mature bull.
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