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Mar172012

Where the Buffalo Roam

We are now at the third in the series of Yellowstone (and Custer State Park) Ungulates… and if I remember correctly this will be the last in the set (unfortunately no moose were to be found on this trip).  Similar to the Wapiti in the previous post (link here), these beasts are so large they have two names.  Using once again my staple for all things researchy, I headed over to Wikipedia to get some details on these once common roamers of the Great Plains.  Surprising to me, the name I usually use for them, Bison, is actually a newer name than Buffalo.  I would have bet all my Double Jeopardy money on the reverse.  This particular Bison appears upset that I didn’t know that.

Bison actually comes from the Greek work for ox-like (originating around 1635).  On the other hand, the name Buffalo comes to us from French fur traders in the 1774 timeframe.  Strangely enough, they failed to give the name Native Americans used for one of their dominant food sources.  What appears to be one of those tragedies from a  lack of conservation principles, these animals definitely took a hit from hunting practices (skin market driven more than food source) which just about drove them to extinction – Wikipedia also indicates that this was a US Army endorsed activity in order to impact the Native Indian living conditions.  The good news is conservation efforts have been bringing them back and now listed as near threatened.

Linda and I have had the privilege of photographing these creatures at three wonderful places.  You can fill all your digital cards up with Bison shots at either Yellowstone National Park or Custer State Park.  They are so abundant there you eventually start ignoring them about halfway into the trip.  I always joke that trips there start out with “oh oh a Bison” proceed to  “wow, look at that one over there”, then “eh, let’s keep driving” and finally “hey, get the hell of the road so we can get to the wolves!”  Now in truth, we may progress through this transition to disinterest at a faster rate than most.  We actually live about 10 minutes from Wildlife Prairie Park which has a very nice collection of Bison and other native animals to the Great Plains.  You can read more about that park on a previous post (link here).  (looks like I already used the two name bit on that previous post – looks like I need to get some original material.)

Here is one of the local residents of Custer State Park.

Hit the jump to see the rest of the Bison collection.

Continue Reading…

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Mar292011

So Big They Have Two Names

This is your heart … Thump …….. Thump……….. Thump ………… Thump ………… Thump. This is your heart when the month is nearly over and you have not met your blog quota ..Thump.Thump.Thump.Thump.Thump. Good thing a Boy Scout is always prepared (and for the record, by Boy Scout I mean the one month I actually lasted in that organization but hey, something sunk in.. that and hitch knots). Today’s subject is one of those animals you tend to stand there in awe over.  Are they capable of blinding speed, gifted jumping abilities or possibly grace in the water or sky? Not so much. To be honest I think it tends to bring back memories of our country’s heritage, a reminder of our past both good and bad.

If you are from the heartlands of America (with a slight lean to the West), you will recognize this animal as the Bison or the Buffalo depending on your history books. These hoofed animals are simply huge and can be seen quite far away as they move their bulk around the grasslands. These shots were actually taken at our local Wildlife Prairie Park (Edwards, Illinois) featuring animals historically native to the great plains.

Linda and I watched this particular animal stroll in from afar. It didn’t take us long to figure out the reason for soon after spotting it, we noticed the park workers spreading out the grain to our right. Another fine example of Pavlovian Training.  I have no idea how many times they eat a week, but clearly the number of buckets they were spreading around was not sufficient enough to fill up this guy, much less the rest of the herd that was following a little behind.  The next time I am at the park I’ll try to hunt someone down that can give me the full story on their eating habits.  It is possible this is just done as a treat to bring them closer to the public and the real feeding happens out in the back fields.  I’ll let you know what I find out.

One of my observations from numerous encounters while visiting the park and on various vacations out West is how calming these animals are. They never seem to be concerned about anything and go about their business pretty much oblivious to their surroundings. This is likely due to their size relative to their competing food chains, but those horns might make a few of the more aggressive predators a little squeamish. This doesn’t mean they are not keeping an eye on you.

Okay, sometimes they have to squint a little … but they are still open enough to size up your scrawny body. Oh, I just remembered one amazing scene we experience out in Yellowstone a couple of years ago. Linda and I were out on a trail snapping some pictures of elk and and few Bison that happened to be shading themselves under a grove of trees. All of sudden I heard a commotion in the parking lot several hundred feet away. Eventually I pinpointed the source. A huge buffalo was actually running across the parking lot somehow dodging the incoming cars and avoiding the parked one. Definitely not gazelle speed, but they can get moving far faster than previously expected. Just imagine that bulk moving at you… yikes, let’s hope they keep that docile gene.

They next time you have the pleasure of encountering one of these majestic creatures, take a few minutes to just enjoy the moment. Yes, I know they were a victim of America’s advancement and there is absolutely nothing you or I can do to change the past. Instead focus on the proud heritage of the creature and what it has come to stand for.  A great representation of how proud we are to call America our home.

And if you have a differing opinion of our country…. well, I can’t say it any better than this:

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May252010

Bison: They're Pretty Cool for the First 50 Times

I have a small Blog crisis.  Linda and I have just decided on our upcoming vacation destination.  I’ll keep that location a secret for now, but I can tell you it involves another National Park.  This means we will be burning through our camera batteries again.  Unfortunately, I STILL have to get through some wildlife sets we took on our last vacation to Yellowstone.  In an attempt to resolve this backlog, the next group of posts is probably going to be dominated by wildlife pictures.  Hopefully you won’t mind too much.  I do have some interesting observations as of late and will try to sprinkle them in where I can -heck, I might even exceed my standard output… although running season is kicking in now so the training hours go up as well.

Enough whimpering, let’s get to the big dudes in the forest.  Today’s set is a collection of Bison captured at various times throughout Yellowstone and likely a few from the Grand Tetons and Rocky Mountain parks as well.

At first, these large beasts are unique and exciting.  The camera comes out, you take about 50 pictures while marveling in their size.  The one above actually caught me a little off guard.  The real shot was slightly to the left capturing the water, the mountains in the back and a nice clump of evergreens off to the right.  Unfortunately, that shot didn’t make it up to the blog site (not exactly sure why, but it wasn’t there when went to link to it), but trust me it was pretty cool.  In an effort to give a couple of crop options, I took a few pan shots.  On the final pan right shot, the bison came into focus.  This caused a slight internal jolt realizing that not checking the surroundings when on a shoot could get you in some serious trouble.  Mental note taken to scan the area before bringing the camera up to shoot position!

I really like the original version of this image.  The cropping and zooming took a little of the life out of it, but I like the multiple depths through the pines and then back to the lake and beyond.

After awhile, you realize that Bison sightings are not that rare in that region.  In fact, at one point along the trip, we basically never stopped, but simply admired them as we drove by.  Although, one funny thing did happen while admiring this set of bison.  With the long glass on, we could still get nice photos from the established paths through the park.  A lady with a point and shoot apparently needed to decrease the distance between her four legged subjects and proceeded to walk out towards them.  Catching Linda’s attention, I pointed to the scene and told her to keep her camera ready for America’s Funniest Videos.  I blogged on this previously, but the interesting part of that eye witness was the fact some bison offspring were hidden right behind one of the bison on the ground.  Having no idea how protective bison parents were of the young, I assumed this was NOT the thing to do.  It went off okay, she got her shot and returned without ever realizing the potential danger she was in.  Darn, no videos for AFV.  By the way, here were the young from a different angle.

Are they not the cutest things?  Life must be great in the wild when you know your parents are at the top of the food chain.  I doubt the wolves would venture into this danger, there are too many elk and less aggressive prey out there for them.  Sure, the adult bison became somewhat of a bore after the frequent sightings, but I’m a sucker for wildlife with their young.  Linda and I didn’t pass up an opportunity to shoot a few cute family scenes.

Hit the jump to see a few of those shots!

Continue Reading…

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Jun282009

What Are They Thinking?

At Culvers today I was thinking it was nearing the end of the month and I was way behind on my posts.  I actually have plenty of content queued up, but have been having a hard time to sparing the time to get it written up.  The trip out to Yellowstone energized me to start cleaning up my forest acreage and getting the trails cut in.  This has a tendency to drain me especially when I have to end the day with my 7-8 mile Bix7 training runs.  I was jarred back into the moment at hand when a young woman approached the counter with her friend.  She was holding a wrapped hamburger which begged my attention.  Correctly guessing, it was a messed up order.  Two statements made me stand and wonder what was going on in their head.  First, while explaining what the problem was, the young girl states “I threw the onions out the window because that’s what everyone did”  For one of the few times I can’t think of any context where an observed action makes any sense.  Was there a big pile of onions on the side of the road she was simply adding to?  Did she see a whole like of people ahead of her in the drive through whipping their condiments out the window?  I have nothing here folks other than the possibility she was savvy enough to know they come from the ground so returning it seemed like the appropriate action. The other interesting statement was from the cashier.  For some reason she was not stunned at all about the onion comment, but after listening to the issue she responded with “Would you like that made again right now?”  I had at least 4 clever responses in the time that took her to respond with the boring “Yes”.  Possibly a clever cashier followup would have been to simply grab the sandwich and scrape the undesired condiments off on the edge of the counter and handed it back.  It probably would have been job ending, but I probably would have shook her hand after redeeming herself from a stupid question.

Anyway, I decided to get this post on a couple of vacation scenes that made as much sense as this encounter.  First a quiz.  Does anyone out there think Bison are tame?  Does anyone believe that wild animals don’t care about their young?  And lastly, are wild animals entirely predictable?  If you answered affirmative to any of those questions you need to stay out of our National Parks and stick to safer destinations like zoos.  I can’t tell you how many times we saw people chasing out after wildlife to get the perfect shot.  Note, this can all be remedied by purchasing higher powered glass, which is significantly cheaper than getting a horn removed from your rear.

This lady decided that the numerous stay away from wildlife warning signs didn’t apply to her.

Dumb Human

We had already taken a number of pictures from the walkway (with the 200 glass) and was able to get various angles in complete safety.  What this lady didn’t know is there is a calf (guess that is what you call it) on the other side.  I kept my finger on the trigger for funniest home gold.  In case you questioned, the answer is I have little sympathy for stupid people but luckily for her the subject didn’t decide to test her speed.

Then there was this guy.

Dumb Human

The elk are probably a little more tame than Bison, but this guy essentially stalked this elk for 15 minutes.  He was trying to be clever and stay out of view, but checking the angle of the elk tells you how successful that was.  Every time the guy took a few steps forward, the elk would head a little further up the hill.  I joked to my wife that he was being led closer to the tree line so his friends could roll him.  Yes, I kept my camera ready for any violence that might have been initiated.  I ended up 0-2 for content on the my series When Good Animals Go Bad.  Admit it, you would watch it – and you can’t tell me it would be any worse than watching the wife of our removed and soon to be put on trial ex-governor Blowjobovich trying to replace her cuss filled tirade wiretap image with a PR stunt in the woods.  But the funny thing about this is there was another elk (with a similar rack) sitting under a tree not 30 feet from the trail.  The whole time that elk kept a close eye on the guy.  Made me wonder if it was not the humans who were on display.  I wish I could tell what that elk was thinking at that moment.  Maybe it was this.

The Food Chain

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