Bulls threw me a birthday party

elkduds

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Canon City and South Park CO
3 bulls.JPG
Three bulls through the long, slow lens.

I need to write this while I still remember details. 3 nights ago i was into several small groups of elk in a familiar burn @ sunset. I had seen a raghorn a few minutes before arriving at the burn. When I spotted elk again, spooked a cow when I turned on the big camera and it beeped. So I went through the menu, turned off the beeps and shutter sound, and crept in the direction she went w her calf. Light was falling, I had the big camera ready when the next cow saw me first and trotted off, but not far. In fact, she came around behind me and started barking at me. I made my way along the burn where they feed, seeing some @ 50 yards, some @ 30. Each bunch of cows would either smell me, mew or bark and trot out of sight. None left in a hurry alarmed but all were camera shy. There is a blowdown with needles still on it in the burn, and I have seen a group of elk feeing around it a few times in recent weeks. They seem like the same bunch, so I call them the blowdown gang. When I snuck past the blowdown heading down toward the truck, the gang saw me and shuffled up to a ridge just above me. There they stayed, watching me, barking, talking, breaking branches. I never chase them after they bust e because I go to hang out near them regularly.

Tonight @ 6 ish I was hiking up to the same burn. Had the big zoom camera around my neck, small zoom camera in my shorts pocket, and phone w camera in other pocket. I saw a little bull in the same spot as 3 nights ago, got the cameras ready and slowed way down. I crept clear through the burn without seeing any elkhide. Then I sat on a stump with an 80 mile view, and listened to the mountain sounds while the wispy clouds turned orange with the sunset. After a short while with a long set of views, I began to hear squirrels chattering back toward the burn. Then came chirps and limbs breaking, heavy strides in the timber I checked the big zoom camera, on 15x magnification the shutter speed was 1/5 second. Hard not to blur pics with such a long shutter opening. The smaller camera said it needed flash, which elk resent. The herd was sounding more boisterous, heading into the burn to feed.With a slight breeze on the back of my neck, I slow walked 30 yards into the burn until I saw movement.

First there were 2 spikes, with several tan shapes behind them. I froze in the open as they angled downhill and toward me. Where they came from there came crashing sounds, louder and more violent than the sounds of group of bulls walking past me at 20 yards. Two jousting bulls shoved each other and rattled antlers as they came into view. Then the downhill bull disengaged and started feeding with the others. I'm in plain sight, trying to hold the long zoom steady during slow shutter snaps. I realize these will not be good photos, but may be sufficient to remind me of this, my most amazing elk encounter. Eight bulls and a couple cow, heads down, feeding easily next to me for what seemed like hours. I kept very still and took it all in; the smells, the elk talk, their absence of adrenaline, the sense of being a herd. Despite plenty of my own adrenaline, I was able to match their ease. The closest raghorn was staring @ me, not a hard stare, just noticing something out of place. So I decided to try a picture with the flash camera in my pocket. I hoped it wouldn't chase them over the mountain. I doubted any of the shots already taken through the long zoom would be distinguishable, and I wanted to record this auspicious event, the night a herd of bulls threw me a birthday party one day late. I turned the camera on in my pocket by feel, expecting a quickdraw shot from the hip at fleeing elk. And so it was, as I raised the camera that staring raghorn headed back through the herd, the rest quickly joining his dash back up the hill they came from. Somewhere in there I took a shot, the flash adding urgency to their escape. But I didn't hear the long, crashing din of a spooked herd. They stopped just out of sight, and I heard them commiserating as I hurried to the truck through the deepening twilight.

8 bulls leaving fast.JPG
I count 8 bulls getting gone. No time for zoom on this quickdraw photo.
 
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