Mid-July Trip To Pennsylvania Elk Country

The River

Temperatures were hot and humid when I arrived in Benezette in mid-afternoon on Monday July 17th for several days of elk filming and photography.  Reports indicated that few elk were being seen in town or on Winslow Hill, but in spite of this I felt optimistic of success.

Even though it was stifling hot, there was little haze in the air with only a slight threat of a thunderstorm and it was a good evening to take a walk with the cameras if you didn't mind being soaked with sweat. Since I usually concentrate on taking video, I carried a Panasonic FZ2500 fitted with a 5" Small HD monitor on the tripod for that purpose and a Canon 1DKMKII with the Canon 100mm-400mm IS II lens in my camera bag for still photography. I saw several small bulls that evening and one was close enough for good still photos.

Alert 5x5

5x5 Looks At Distant Bulls

The best bull of the evening was a decent 6x6, but unfortunately he was in short grass, which provided a less than deal setting and he was always looking directly at me when I was taking stills.

6x6 Pauses From Grazing

Three of the most important parts of elk photography in the summer is being out early in the morning and staying late in the evening.  When I walked I never got back to the vehicle until after dark.  The down side to this of course is that lighting conditions are often less than ideal when you encounter the elk. I prefer the mornings if it is not too foggy, but that is a big problem in elk country as it seems most mornings are foggy--some of them so bad that photography is almost impossible. Fortunately the morning I encountered a fine 6x7 with a bachelor group of smaller bulls, the fog was spotty and there were relatively clear periods at times.

6x7 On A Foggy Morning

4K Video Frame Grab of Bachelor Group

On Wednesday morning another fine 6x7 was grazing in a meadow of tall grasses and I photographed him with the 1DXMKII and 500mm F 4 lens.

6x7  Looks To Distant Hill Side

Another View

Eventually he returned to feeding and worked past my position and I used the 5DMKIII with the Canon 100-400mm IS II to photograph him with a bit more of the surroundings included in the photo.

6x7: Taken with 5DMKIII and 100-400mm IS II at 371 mm

I spent very little time driving around Winslow Hill. I did check for the bulls that I saw last month along the road at the upper end of the hill, but I only saw a small one and didn't film him. Late on Tuesday morning I played tourist and photographed a herd of elk in a camp lawn with the Panasonic FZ1000, which I usually use for close-up video filming when I am not able to set the tripod up. I also used it to take the river photo at the beginning of the post and it does a creditable job with stills as long as one keeps at the lower ISO settings.

A Typical Sighting On Winslow Hill

All in all I have had better July trips to elk country, but this one still gave a lot of photo and video opportunities.  The summer has moved so quickly and it seems impossible to think that very shortly most of the bulls will shed the velvet and soon another rut will begin.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

June Bulls In Pennsylvania Elk Country

Winslow Hill Bull

 When I first began going to Pennsylvania Elk Country in 1995 it was a much different place than it is today with little in the way of food plots planted for wildlife. There was some planting at the Dents Run Viewing Area and a portion of The Saddle and the plot behind Busy Bee Campground were usually mowed sometime during the summer. Back then my summer elk filming usually consisted of taking a tour around Winslow Hill and out to Hick's Run or Driftwood and to Medix Run in the mornings and evenings. Since many fed elk and there were few food plots, the elk were attracted to the feeding and the green lawn grass. As a result  many of the bulls were to be found in the lawns eating the grass and nibbling on the  flowers.

Today there is a lot of high quality forage in elk country and there are a lot more elk than in 1995. Now it is relatively common so see large bachelor  groups of bulls feeding in the food plots while they are less likely to be seen in town.

During my June trip, I saw two bulls along the road on Winslow Hill every day. The first was the 6x6 at the beginning of the post and the second is the bull below.

Largest Bull Seen on Winslow Hill

At this juncture I am not going to speculate on the number of points on the rack.  A point must be at least an inch in length to be counted and this bull has a lot of points that are still too short to meet that criteria. Some are on the borderline and may become long enough or they may not.

I spent most evenings on foot in remote areas and sometimes did not get back to the vehicle until well after dark.  As usual I concentrated on taking video and carried a Panasonic FZ2500 on the tripod for that purpose, and a Canon 1DXMKII with the Canon 100-400mm IS II  in a camera bag to take still images.

One evening I walked back a field road and came upon a fine bull.  After taking video I put the still camera in action and captured several frames.

5x5 Bull Pauses From Feeding

5x5 Bull Scents For Danger

5x5

This bull  is currently a 5x5, but looks like he will be at least a 6x6 and possible a 7x7 when antler development is completed. A bit later I found a bachelor group  sharing a food plot with a solitary cow.

Bachelor Group and Cow Share Food Plot

I saw two more similar bachelor groups that evening, but the photo below was taken on the following evening when I didn't find nearly  as many bulls overall on the same walk, but found more of them together so I suspect these were some of  the same bulls concentrated  in one place.

Seven Rack Bulls-One Spike

On Friday morning the last day of the trip I drove the roads around Benezette before leaving for home and photographed the largest bull of the trip. In this case the images were taken from the tripod with the old Canon 500mm f4.0 IS and the 1DXMKII.

Mature 7x7

Mature 7x7-A Different Angle

It will be interesting to see how much larger the bulls have grown if I am able to go back this month.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

July Bulls

Mature Bull Feeding In Natural Meadow

I spent last week in Pennsylvania Elk Country filming and photographing the Pennsylvania elk herd.along with any other wildlife that I happened to find.  It was one of the better July trips to Pennsylvania Elk Country, that I have experienced with a lot of encounters with bulls in velvet and calves. Today we will focus on the bulls and look at the calf photos in a future post. Except for the young spikes, bulls were mostly  found either by themselves or in bachelor groups and they were usually seen either very early or very late.

Portion Of A Bachelor Group Before Sunrise

 The bulls usually left to spend the day in the woods soon after the first rays of the morning sun hit the meadows although sometimes they lingered much longer as in the case of the largest bull of the trip which is shown in the first photo featured today.  He was still feeding after 8:00 a.m. on a bright sunny morning and was still there when I left at 8:15.

Bulls Slowly Head In As Sun Hits Meadow

 We will close for the day with two more photos of 6x6 bulls both of which were taken in the early morning.

6x6 Bull

6x6 Pauses By Roadside

I hope you enjoyed the photos.  As usual, I took a lot more video than stills, but it is getting harder to find the time and motivation to edit so I will not promise when I will post some video clips, but I do hope to make a post soon about the calf encounters.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Early and Late Is The Key For Successfully Photographing Summer Bulls

7x7 Along Winslow Hill Road

 Today,s post features more photos of bull elk from the mid-June trip to Pennsylvania Elk Country.  While I saw several cows and calves it seemed that bulls were much easier to see and photograph.  Some had impressive antler growth, but most were young bulls such as the one in the photo below. This class of bull needs to get a few more years on him to grow truly impressive antlers, although they can look quite large to someone used to seeing only whitetail deer.

4x4 Pauses From Grazing

I found another 4x4 grazing in a small opening by the roadside  along Dents Run Road and photographed him with the 7D MKII and the 100-400mm IS II lens.

4x4 Along Dents Run Road

 It seems especially in the summer, that one can only see bulls consistently either very early in the morning or late in the evening.  They are usually back in the woods either before the first rays of the sun touches the meadows, or shortly thereafter in the mornings and they usually do not emerge again until shortly before sundown or later and the hotter it is, the more this rule applies.  The bull below was photographed on the first evening of the trip as I found him feeding along Winslow Hill Road.   This photo was taken at ISO 1000 with a Canon 5D MKIII and the 70-200 IS II L lens at f2.8 and 1/50 sec. shutter speed. This lens and the 300mm f2.8 are my two favorite low light elk lenses.

4X4 In Low Light-Winslow Hill Road

One cannot tell from the angle of the photo above but this bull will be at least a 5x5 as his main beams were beginning to fork into another set of points.  I cannot be certain as bulls with this general configuration are quite common,  but I think I filmed this bull several miles from this spot on Thursday morning with the GH4, but this was video only so I cannot post a comparison shot.

The next photo was taken at 5:44 a.m. on June 15th and  helps make the point that one needs to be out early. The equipment used was the 5D MKIII and 600mm F4 IS lens.  It was taken at ISO 1000 at 1/60 sec. f4.5.

Bachelor Group Interacting

The last photo for the day contradicts my advice somewhat as you did not need to be out extra-early to get it as these bulls were still in the meadow at 7:08 a.m. on June 16th.

Still Out After Sunrise On A Foggy Morning

I hope you enjoyed the photographs and remember that the key to success is getting up early and staying out late.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill

Mid-June In Pennsylvania Elk Country

5x7 On Winslow Hill

I spent most of last week in Pennsylvania Elk Country, meeting with some of the members of The Support PA Elk Facebook Page and photographing and filming the wildlife of Pennsylvania Elk Country. This was my first trip there since late March and I wish to thank members Charlie Cropp and Paul Staniszewski for doing most of the work on the Support Elk page since that time.

Most of the calves have been born by now.  Each year a number of calves are captured to gather biological data, and the animals may be fitted with ear tags and in some cases radio collars.  This program was still underway  while we were there and we got to observe the team at a distance as they finished processing a calf at the Woodring Farm on Wednesday morning.

Team Processes Calf While Cow Looks On At Woodring Farm

 The team was composed of both professional conservation agency employees and volunteers, with the PGC Elk Biologist, and the KECA Biologist included on the team along with  Widlife Conservation Officer, Jason Wagner and Land Management Officer, Colleen Shannon.. According to WCO Wagner this was the last day they were capturing calves this year.

I saw a lot of calves at times. As is my usual experience at this time of year, they were a bit on the shy side and it was hard to get good photos or video, but nonetheless I did get a few usable still photos.  Both of the photos below were taken while I was standing watch from a parking lot beside a marshy area with ponds on Dewey Road, but they were taken on different mornings.  In the first case elk were feeding near the site of the old Gilbert House and for whatever reason suddenly came running down the hill and across Rucki Road.

Running For The Woods

I was in the same area briefly on Friday morning when a cow and her calf quickly crossed the wetlands.  In both cases the elk were far away and the photos are cropped substantially even with using the 600mm F4 lens. The second encounter was an especially challenging situation as the animals were in the shade, but the sun was shining in the top portion which made the highlights difficult to deal with.

Crossing The Wetlands

 Friday morning was the best period of  trip for seeing calves  but this encounter was the only one in which I successfully photographed one with the still camera that day . Shortly after dawn I filmed a large group of cows with several calves, with the Panasonic GH4..   I hope to complete a short video of some of the better footage from this trip in the near future  and it will hopefully include footage from this encounter.

The last photo of the day is of the 5x7, taken while he browsed on a multi-flora rose bush along Winslow Hill Road.

Browsing On Multi-Flora Rose

I hope to post a few more photos from the trip in the near future as well as the video.  By this time next month the antlers will be almost completely grown and the velvet will be shed in August. The calves are usually easier to photograph as they are no longer as fearful of predators as they can escape them easier, and the capturing and tagging period is now a faint memory..

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

A Tale Of Bulls And Thunderstorms

By mid-July the antlers on the bulls are mostly grown. It is always a special treat to photograph them with the velvet covered antlers and I usually spend several days in Pennsylvania Elk Country in this time frame.  Most of the photographers report seeing average size bulls for the most part and most of the bull pictures posted on Facebook seem to bear this out.  This was also my experience in most cases and I saw a lot of nice young 4x4 and 5x5 bulls, but I did see one very nice 6x7 and this is mostly the story of that encounter.

5x5 Bull Pauses From Browsing

I don't need to tell anyone that it has been an exceptionally wet July and a lot of my photography earlier in the week involved dodging thunder storms.  On Tuesday evening I traveled to a remote area to film and when I arrived water was running in streams down the ruts in the dirt road.  At that point the cloud cover was broken with the sun peaking through at times.  I took the video rig with tripod and carried the 7D MK II with the new 100-400mm L IS II lens strapped around my neck and hiked to a meadow that showed some promise.  I had no sooner reached the spot I wished to watch than the sky became very threatening and thunder began rumbling.

The Gathering Storm

It seemed a wise course to pursue a hasty retreat to the vehicle and as I was half-way back to the vehicle when I noticed two large bulls had just emerged from the  woods and were feeding in the meadow.  I concentrated on filming them with the video camera, and also fired a few frames with the still camera.  The bulls were at least 150 yards away.

Mature Bulls Feeding-Taken At 110mm

Mature Bulls Watch Photographer-Taken at 400mm

It was raining lightly when I saw the bulls and it became heavier and heavier as I filmed.  While this doesn't show up in the still photos, it made for especially appealing video as there is something so wild looking about film of wildlife in falling rain or snow. While the still equipment can endure quite a bit of rainfall I had an external monitor on the video camera, which is not weather sealed, so I filmed for a short time and then covered it with a garbage bag and took cover in the vehicle.

In time the rain dropped off to desultory sprinkles and I considered the situation.  Should I move on to another area or should I return.  There was a likelihood that the bulls would be gone, but my gut instinct told me there was a very good chance  they would still be there and that other animals would have joined them.  The next decision was which camera rig to carry.  Usually I would carry video when the light is very murky, but I finally decided to carry the best long-range low light still rig I had along, which was the Canon  5D MK III and the 600mm F 4.0.  Sure enough when I got back to the meadow I found they had been joined by two more bulls so I took several frames of them at about 150 yards distance at ISO 1000 with a shutter speed of 1/100 at F 4.0.

Two Bulls After Thunderstorm

The one on the right, which is also pictured directly below, was the most impressive of the group because of his wide spread. He appeared to be a 6x7 while the smaller bull was at least a 5x6.

Largest Bull After Thunderstorm

The photo below shows the fourth bull standing on the right while the animal on the left is the smaller bull from the first encounter.

Bulls After Rain

With that it was time to leave as darkness was rapidly approaching and the sky cleared soon after sunset giving the promise of more pleasing weather conditions for the next few days.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Calves And Bulls In Pennsylvania Elk Country

I spent most of the past week in Pennsylvania Elk Country with the primary focus of the trip being the photography of elk calves and bulls in velvet.  A large herd of cows was seen most mornings and evenings along Dewey Road.  At times it was possible to see calves with them and sometimes there were many of them.  Mostly the calves were seen either very early or very late when the light was less than ideal for quality photographs.

Elk Calf

Many of the elk were very shy and calves especially usually didn't linger near the road.  It is common for them to be more spooky at this time of year as the cows are especially concerned about protecting the young from danger.  Many of the calves were fitted with ear tags.  This is done by workers capturing the calves and fitting them with the tags and collecting biological data and it seems likely that this also contributes to the animals being especially shy at this time of year.

Extended Family Group

No ear  tags are visible in today's photographs, but I have quite a bit of video of calves with tags and will hopefully be posting a short video of wildlife seen on the trip in the near future.  As usual, I took mostly video as it works better in very low light conditions or at long range. 

Most of the bulls seen from the road on Winslow Hill were small, but one 5x5  was of respectable size, although it is still a young bull and far from realizing its' maximum potential. A few years ago this meadow provided an excellent background of wildflowers and tall grasses, but now it is kept mowed.

5x5 Pauses From Grazing In Short Grass

The largest bull of the trip was seen well over 100 yards away in Cameron County  one morning and I took a few photos of him. hand-held with the  70D and the new model 100-400mm as the animal was very edgy and seemed likely to flee at any moment..

Cameron County 6x6-Canon 70D-100-400mm IS II

Although he acted very nervous he did not leave, so I cautiously set up the 600mm and the 7D MK II on a tripod and took a few frames.

Cameron County 6x6-Canon 7D MK II-600mm F4

It was a good trip on the whole and I hope to post more about it in the next few days, which will include photos of the relocation of Dewey Rd and the construction of the new parking lot there.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Summer Bulls In PA Elk Country

Bulls ordinarily travel in bachelor groups during the summer months and I spent a lot of time in early morning and late evenings trying to locate them during the past weeks trip. A lot of the bulls I saw have great potential, but they needed to grow several more years to be impressive bulls.  The animal in front in the photo below is a great example.  He certainly has a lot of points, but the rack is lacking in overall mass and the bull behind him is smaller.  They were part of a bachelor group of 7-8 bulls.  One had a bit wider spread, but the points were not as well developed.

Young Bulls

Most of the other bulls that I saw were traveling in bachelor groups also.  The composition of these groups is not static and it is possible to see a bull with several others on one day and then see him on the next day with another group of bulls.  I would expect that at times the entire group combines in one large bachelor group.

The photos below are portraits of single bulls, but they were traveling with a bachelor group in both cases with no cows or calves in the meadow with them. These were the largest bulls in the herd that day and most of the bulls with them were larger than those posted in the first picture. The first has a beautiful typical rack.

Typical 6x7

The most impressive bull photographed was one that I believe to be the famous "U Bull"  He was named this a few years ago, by some of the dedicated elk photographers.  I have not had a reasonably close encounter with him until this instance and am not an authority on his characteristics. Whatever the case he appears to be of the same genetic line as the "Crazy Legs" bulls.

"The U Bull"- An Impressive Non-typical Bull

There seems to be quite a few bulls that have this genetic trait.  One was featured in the last post and I saw at least two more small bulls that show the same type of antler configuration.

All in all things seem promising for great photo opportunities during the coming rut.  Most of the bulls will be of small to medium class, but at least a few should have impressive racks. As of yet I have seen no 400 class bulls and will not be surprised if none are seen on the hill this fall.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.