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Cow Grooming Calf
At
the conclusion of the post about the bulls I saw during my mid-July
trip to Pennsylvania Elk Country, I promised to post some calf photos
from the trip and today I have finally got around to doing that. I was
not as successful at photographing and filming the calves as I was with
the bulls. In most cases, areas that are good for seeing bachelor
groups of mature bulls are not usually the best spots for seeing elk
calves and I spent the most of the best elk sighting times in prime bull
range.
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| Prime Summer Bull Range Is Often Not Best For Calf Sightings |
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But on at least one evening and one morning, I
concentrated on working with the calves. At times it was easy to see a
lot of calves on Winslow Hill, but they were usually a bit far away, or
it was too early or too late for the best quality photos.
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| Calf At Woodring Farm In Early Morning |
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| Cows And Calves Shortly After Sunrise On Winslow Hill |
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| Cows And Calves Near Sunset On Winslow Hill |
An encounter at the ponds on Dewey Road had the
potential for exceptional photos when a cow nursed a calf on one the
pond banks, but as luck would have it the grass was too tall in front of
the cow and the calf was mostly obscured. Otherwise the grass
contributed to the wild look of the photo and made for a much more
pleasing setting than short, lawn type grass.
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| Cow Nursing Calf On Pond Bank |
When nursing was completed the cow stepped away and
the calf stepped into a more open spot, licked its' lips, and looked
out at the surrounding countryside. The only problem here was that it
was a bit far even for the 600mm for a close-up portrait. In this case I
cropped the photo to 2MP in Adobe Camera Raw which which works quite
well for the web, but would start to fall apart on big enlargements.
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| Alert Calf |
All in all it was one of the better, if not the best,
July trips to elk country that I can recall. After filming on Friday
morning it was time to return home and it was with mixed feelings that I
headed for Fulton County. For one thing it is always good to get home
and see the family and resume photographing the local wildlife, but on
the other hand it seemed that had I been able to stay for a few more
days that I was getting a system worked out that seemed likely to yield a
lot more good photos and video.
Soon the bulls will be
losing the velvet and sparring will begin in earnest. In fact a few
bulls may have lost it already, but most will do around the middle of
August or a bit later. Soon I hope to return to elk country to document
this exciting event and when this is over it will be only a short time
until the rut begins.
Originally published at
Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
