And, another rut is on!
It was another slow day in Yellowstone, though the light was beautiful, which made taking photos of the bison enjoyable. And, I have a lot of bison images! And, every once in awhile, I see the pronghorn in a location that just begs me to take photos and so I do. With the big horns it is a matter of action – what are they doing and what kind of looks do they have on their faces. I photographed all three today and will share those images in another post, except for this one of the Big Horns. I saw this face and cracked right up laughing.
And, my first sighting of the day was a Trumpeter Swan cygnet in Rescue Creek. Had never seen a swan in that creek before and so it caught me off guard. Which was enough incentive to turn around, go back and spend some time with the swan.
But, the subject of this post is the Blacktail rut. I still have not seen any good sparring in any of the ruts – elk, bison, deer or big horns. Well, a little with the bison but only a little. So, I have resolved to spend extra time with the deer and the sheep, in hopes of catching some true action. Today was not that day, though I did get to see some posturing that I had never seen before.
When I first arrived this buck was having a blast chasing the girls around. And then suddenly several more girls burst on the scene and ran into to join the already big herd.
Little guy knew that his time was limited.
And here he comes.
But, the younger guy wasn’t going to give up without doing a little more mingling and sniffing.
Besides, there was a guy that was smaller than him.
And the big guy got to work
And he just cowered and did not even put up a fight.
Just one last look before he left.
But soon the big guy had it all to himself. Even though there wasn’t much for him to do but sniff and boss. His time will come and he had quite the collection of girls.
Thank goodness I have this site, where I can show you just how much fun the day was. And show off all of my images! Not great as far as fancy light but there are some animals that I prefer to photograph in flat light so there are not deep shadows from antlers and horns.
This was just some nice, clean fun.
Barbara, I have always been told that blacktail and mule deer were the same. But, apparently, in some parts of the west, some are mule deer and some are blacktail. And, now that you mention it, I do think the ones in this area are referred to as mule.
Deby are those mule deer? The antler arrangement is different. Thanks for the photos and story.