Monday, January 11, 2016

A Rainy Morning On Dewey Road

Mature Bull-Herding Cows In Falling Rain
Looking back 2015 was certainly a good year for elk and whitetail deer photography in many ways, while in other ways it brought disturbing changes--especially to Pennsylvania Elk Country, but for today we will strive to focus on the positive.

It was raining lightly on the morning of September 30th, and a large herd of elk was feeding across the road from the ponds on Dewey Road. A large number of elk watchers  and photographers were there when we arrived shortly after 8:00 and my brother and I soon joined in. The bull shown above was there along with  some satellite bulls.  This was possibly the largest bull seen at the Gilbert Farm Viewing Area this year and he was usually somewhere in the Dewey Road area during the two weeks I was there. This is also the bull that was in the video clip I posted recently.

Roaring A Challenge
The bulls are so impressive that we often focus much of our efforts on photographing and filming them, but it is also good to photograph the cows and calves as well. It was especially noteworthy today that one of the calves still had the spotted, summer coat and was small compared to the other calves so it was evidently born much later than normal.

Spotted Calf In Late September

Calf - Normal September Coat
All too soon the elk rut was over and now the year is over. I look forward to the photo and filming opportunities that 2016 will hopefully bring, bur as for the mature bull--he will not be back next year as he was killed during elk season.

All photos posted today were taken with the Canon 5D MK III and the Canon 600mm F4.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

3 comments:

Donna said...

Love that sweet baby! So sad that once again, the biggest and the best bull is targeted and killed. Thanks for sharing the article! As always, I enjoyed it!

Woody Meristem said...

Figures that any habituated large bull will be shot during the open season. So much for fair chase! It's obvious that the Game Commission needs a funding source in addition to license sales; until that occurs the resource and wildlife watchers and photographers will always be second class citizens and be forced to take a back seat to license buyers.

Ruth Hiebert said...

A bull Elk is so impressive,but the spotted young one is charming in a different way.