Wild Memories Photography Tours

I remember last year when a photographer friend told me that he had been sitting in a field with a number of pronghorns and their new fawns, quietly watching them and taking their photos.  He said that suddenly the mothers deposited their youngsters near him and wandered out for a bite to eat.

“They put me in charge of the babies and so I couldn’t leave,” he told me.

Yes, I was oh so jealous because I wanted to go out and babysit pronghorn babies and stare into their cute, bug eyes.

My friend had babysat 6 fawns that day and only days later that same group had two fawns remaining, the rest having been preyed upon by coyotes and bears.  I hated my friend for not going back every day to resume his babysitting duties.

One day, three of the  mothers stood at the edge of the forest, all looking in the different directions that their children had been drug to and my heart broke in two.  I hate the killing of the babies but absolutely can not stand to watch the suffering of the mother once the baby is gone.  This is a cruel, wild world and the way life works.  I have to accept the realities but do not have to like them.

This pronghorn baby and mom are special to me because some new friends found them and came and got me, knowing that I was anxious to see the fawns.  When I first met mom she did not have a large wound on her right shoulder or other wounds all over her body.  Something told me that when I saw the two of them again today, that mom had fought hard to save her baby and won.  I was oh so happy to see the two of them again, even if a long ways off in the sagebrush while the fawn was nursing.  My relief was substantial.

I am not sure, because this is only my second year in Yellowstone but it seems as if the pronghorn are behaving differently this year and are not hanging out in large groups like I saw last year, but rather by themselves and staying in close proximity to their youngsters.  Maybe it happens that way every year and I am just now noticing, but it seems/feels different.

We often ignore the pronghorns, in favor of the bears and wolves, but they are quite interesting to watch.  Pronghorns are the fastest land mammals around and they love to run just for the fun of going fast.  Once they are grown more and gotten their feet under them, the pronghorn are rarely preyed upon because they can outrun the predators.

Here are a couple of shots of the fawn, taken two days ago, probably not too many hours after it was born.  The fawn was lying amongst the sagebrush and was watching us, watch it.  Already there seemed to be wisdom and experience in those eyes and I wondered how that could be when only hours old.