Buffalo – Yellowstone National Park – Click for larger view
It’s summer and the the young buffalo are feeling itchy and out of sorts. Something’s coming up, they can feel it but don’t know what it is. All they know is they have to run around, and buck, and spin, and fall to their knees. Pushing their snouts in to the fresh dirt they’ve stirred up, and using their horns to tear up the ground is also on tap. If one of their herd mates is close by they might try and goad them into a sparring match but nothing too serious. The time for the real fighting is still a couple of months away. It’s the prelude to the Rut and these first timers are just at the mercy of their hormones.
The Rut is the breeding season for the buffalo and it is the largest event in their lives. The urge to breed is totally consuming and will occupy their time with fighting, chasing willing and unwilling cows, bellowing, kicking up dirt and dust and generally being swept up in the compulsive nature of their lives. This young buffalo used an old wallow as the center point of his frustration and danced and ran in circles around it and thru it and put on a spectacle that lasted until it was exhausted and finally collapsed to rest. To the observer it was dancing in the dust and for a large animal it was surprisingly graceful.
Everybody’s had it tough with this Covid-19 stuff. The Quarantine, the mask, which I’ve taken off for this shot at home, the social distancing that doesn’t seem to extend to red-tailed hawks by the way, they don’t have any problem just blowing right in and trying to snatch my butt off this rock. No 6′ distancing then. Where are the social distancing rangers when you need them, not here that’s for sure.
Let’s just talk about this quarantine, lock-down, self imposed isolation, whatever you want to call it. I know it affects everybody and nobody likes to be forced to do something they don’t want to even if it is for the greater good. But people have got houses, huge freaking houses, or apartments, or big fat wall tents to get locked down in for their isolation. What have I got, this big stupid rock that’s what. I said big stupid rock but I didn’t mean the rock was big, like in huge. No, it’s a small tiny little rock in the scheme of things. A phone booth of a house and that’s making it seem bigger than it is. I’m supposed to wash my paws, I don’t even have running water. I got to wait until it rains.
You can’t see it from where you are but across the way there, over a bit to the left, there’s a regular condo of burrows in a hillside and little caves and places to sit out in the sun and have grass tea and talk to each other that’s just filled with ground squirrels who had the good fortune to get locked down together. There’s even a ground squirrel cheerleading academy over there. Can I get there from here? Nooooo. Not for a couple of more weeks and that’s only if we don’t get a second wave because some yoyo won’t wear his mask, and if that red-tail quits building its nest over on the tree line.
So yeah, I’m getting fed up with this whole thing. I saw on the net that there is this heavy duty metal sort of a hazmat suit with a built in mask made just for ground squirrels that you can order. So just as soon as my stimulus check comes in I’m ordering one. Then I’m heading across the meadow to ground squirrel heaven. Don’t try and stop me, I’m serious. I’m going. I’ve had it with this rock. Stay tuned for further details.
Tyrone and Lambrè – Bighorn Sheep – Rocky Mountain National Park
What started out as a quiet leisurely lunch of mountain mahogany leaves soon turned into the beginnings of a serious altercation between the two Bighorn rams. Tyrone and Lambrè usually the best of friends, were standing quietly as they normally did slowly finishing their lunch when Tyrone said “Your horns are looking sort of puny” just low enough that Lambrè wasn’t sure he heard him correctly.
“What did you say ?” Lambrè asked, “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“I said, you’re looking kind of puny, horn-wise. What, are you hard of hearing besides ugly”.
Lambrè gave him a slow sideways glance, considering his answer before replying “What is your problem Tyrone? You been hitting the Gypsum weed again. You know that stuff makes you say stupid stuff.”
In the same quiet voice Tyrone said ” I’m just saying I think you’re looking puny and I don’t believe you got a set of juevos to come up against me in the rut here this fall.”
“Tyrone, what are you getting all chesty for that’s two and a half months or more from now. You mean we gotta do this for another couple of months?”
There it starts, the trash talk that leads up to the full on battle between two Bighorn rams every fall when the rut starts. For those of you unfamiliar with the Rut that’s when the rams begin fighting with each other to determine who gets to mate with the females in the herd. It is a battle unmatched by other species except the Elk and Buffalo who do the same thing, fighting to assume supremacy for mating rights, and it can be deadly, though it usually isn’t, just embarrassing for the loser.
Most people are only aware of the actual battles where the rams stand off facing each other then lunge forward driving their heavy horns into the other rams head, with the idea of stunning their opponents or making them turn tail and run away, and not the verbal sparring that goes on during the last weeks of summer while the rams attempt to psych out their opponents. When this event takes place the actual collision of the two animals meeting sounds like a gunshot and can be heard throughout the countryside. Rarely but not unheard of, sometimes an opponent is pushed over the side of a cliff or down a ravine breaking a leg or a neck and of course losing his mating rights along with his life.
The Rut is the most serious event in a Bighorn rams life and it is why everything is fair game as far as psyching out his opponent. Anything can be said and is, to gain that last little edge of advantage. Which is why we hear Tyrone saying to Lambrè just as quietly as before “Hey Lambrè, Yo Mama….” and we all know where that’s going. You may see a preview of the rut before it even starts.
Kids, they run around until they can hardly stand up, screeching and yowling depending on what kind of kids you have, banging into stuff, screeching some more because they got hurt, fighting with each other, running to tell that what’s his ears did this to me, screeching because you won’t beat him for it, leaving their toys everywhere, wanting something to eat, screeching because they don’t like what you give them, and generally depleting their parents patience and stiffening their resolve never to have kids again. Ever.
It ‘s burnout time. They’ve had it and you’ve had it. It’s time for that dreaded mid-afternoon nap. There’s more screeching and yowling because they’re not tired and don’t want a nap. But you know they do, just like you need that glass of wine to help you make it through another day with having four kids under the age of three. Yet there’s always that one hold out that has an ounce more stamina than the others that insists he doesn’t need a nap, but you hold firm and soon he’s nodding out like the others. Bliss at last. Maybe they’re not so bad after all.
Funny thing about wants and needs. Sometimes they line up, other times not so much. They aren’t always the same, the wants and needs that is. The maiden knows the donkey needs to drink. They’re going to be off today on a long trip and there may not be any springs available on the way. So for the success of the journey the donkey needs to drink.
The donkey on the other hand doesn’t give a damn about the journey or what the maiden wants or anything else except maybe eating some grass, he doesn’t feel like a drink. He had a big drink last night and he hasn’t done anything since then so that’s enough right now. Plus it’s obvious his companion wants him to so he won’t, just to be obstinate. Donkeys are like that especially Jack’s, the male ones, who are obstinate by nature. My Dad used to say “They’d bitch if they was hung with a new rope.” not just donkeys, he didn’t have much experience with donkeys, or as he called them ‘Lawn Ornaments’ but anyone who was obstinate just for obstinate’s sake.
The maiden being a maiden is used to males being obstinate. She deals with that every day and has found a few work arounds to get past this particular problem. For her the needs and the wants of this situation just happen to line up. She wants the donkey to drink because she needs the donkey to drink. To accomplish this she acts like they just happened to stumble on this creek, and it just happens to be full of water, which will taste good if one were to drink it. So she scoops up a little and tastes it and by god it is good so she kinds of ignores the donkey and has another taste. Shortly the donkey being curious, looks to see what she’s doing. She takes the handful of water and smacks him gently on the muzzle with that cool water and that’s all it took folks. Forgetting all about obstinance, drinking water is now his idea and she needs to get out of the way. She couldn’t stop him from drinking now if she had to.
In this case all’s well that ends well. The donkey’s been watered with the minimum of fuss, the maiden has accomplished her task and everything’s right with the world.
Sunlit Grass – Cow Elk – Along the Madison River – Yellowstone
September in Yellowstone Park is a special time of the year, especially early September. The Rut is still some weeks away yet, the calves are big enough that they’re basically taking care of themselves, and during the hot afternoons the wolves are usually sleeping back at their dens waiting for the cool of the evening before setting out to see what bounty is available. It’s a rare moment for the cows to take a little time for themselves.
This particular cow had found a spot on a small island in the middle of the Madison river and taking advantage of the tall, golden grass covering it, has settled down for some time in the sun. A haven of relative safety she can let her guard down slightly in a rare moment of solitude. The heat of the afternoon, the absence of any breeze, the buzz of the occasional insect, plus the quiet murmuring of the river as it slowly made its way downstream was enough to allow her to recharge and get set for whatever Nature has in store for her. It’s September along the Madison.
On an early December morning a group of Sandhill cranes left for their daily flight to the feeding fields near Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife refuge. It was bitter cold on the high desert near Soccoro, New Mexico and an unusual light snow was falling on the ponds where the Sandhills had spent the night.
Sandhill Cranes can appear ungainly in certain activities but when they take flight they are the epitome of grace and beauty. Similar to cranes in Asia, most notably in Japan, they are very similar in appearance to their Japanese cousins the Red Crowned cranes. The difference being Red Crowned cranes have black tail feathers that droop like a bustle where as the Sandhill crane has straight shorter tail feathers.
This is a photograph reimagined into an art image by the use of software programs and hand manipulation of the elements of the images on the computer. The purpose being to elevate a normal photograph into a vision that brings out the emotional content of the scene while still keeping the primary elements, the cranes, in their original captured state. In other words, Birds in Art.
You must be logged in to post a comment.