So I was just hanging out in Spring Creek Basin with my mustang friends when these guys showed up, moseying along, drinking at the same little pool of water in the rock arroyo. Super cool. 🙂
This fellow has had some kind of encounter that resulted in a broken main beam of his antlers.
And this healthy-bodied youngster has a great start on what will someday be a very impressive set of antlers!
There were about five bulls with a group of cows and calves. Because of the trees, I couldn’t get a count (and I never think about it anyway), but I’d estimate around 15 to 20 total. The boys usually disperse into all-male groups after the rut, but these elk were still hanging out together. And as you can see, they still have their antlers.
In my experience, elk are pretty wary and hard to get close to. These guys and gals were grazing through the snow near a band of mustangs when I first saw them, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get to my camera quick enough to document that. However, it may be why they were so calm; their equine friends were calm. 🙂
Later, when I looked across the little valley from the ridge I was on to the ridge they had been on, most of them had bedded down on patches of bare ground under pinon and juniper trees (which are sucking up that moisture like nobody’s business!). Nice and quiet on a very windy day!
