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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Spotted Calf In Late September |
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| 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:
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!
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.
A bull Elk is so impressive,but the spotted young one is charming in a different way.
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