Different Day, Different Experience

I always mark the full moon on my calendar which was July 29 hoping for the perfect moonrise photograph. With the dramatic Badlands as a backdrop, I imagined a memorable image. Instead, the weather called for heavy thunderstorms and the clouds rolled through. We headed into the park anyway, hoping for a break in the clouds or perhaps some wildlife. When the sky grew increasingly ominous, we reluctantly turned back before the rain arrived. The moon never appeared to us, but the storms brought a decrease in the temperature which was greatly appreciated.

This morning, I suggested to Regis we recreate our successful wildlife loop through the park but skip the overlooks so we could focus more on the wildlife. The skies were amazing making me reconsider that decision, but I hung in there. To do justice to a place like this, you would have to stay at least a year and go in all seasons and different light to capture the amazing landscape.

We expected a similar wildlife day to the day before, but we had a different experience. Yesterday we saw only two bison. Today there were hundreds. I have no idea where they were hiding. We watched red-colored calves—appropriately nicknamed “red dogs”—nursing while their mothers grazed. Clover and Raven were fascinated. They started to bark but were quickly reminded of the rules. The barking turned into pitiful whining instead, especially from Clover.

There were abundant sightings of mule deer and I was delighted to see male mule deer with velvet covered antlers and a mother and her fawn. Antlers are covered in velvet as they grow back after being shed after mating season in the fall. The velvet supplies blood and nutrients to the growing antlers. Later in the summer the velvet dries and is rubbed off, revealing the hardened antlers that will be used during the fall rut. As for the little fawn, it still had its spots. The spots help camouflage the baby.

We had the most delightful experience of coming across a couple of ewes with their lambs. One lamb seemed to have endless energy. Between bouts of scratching, it launched itself into the air and twisted in ways that hardly seemed possible. Watching it bounce effortlessly made it easy to understand how these young sheep eventually learn to navigate the cliffs that protect them from predators.

While searching for burrowing owls, we saw numbers of horned larks and upland sandpipers foraging through the prairie dog communities. We did not see any burrowing owls but the other birds were more than enough compensation and made us forget about the owls.

There was a male pronghorn lying down in the middle of a prairie dog town. When we stopped the truck, the pronghorn lazily looked in our direction.

We have been so fortunate with our wildlife sightings that I made the unusual request to the powers above to let me see a coyote. If I was unable to see one, I would have been content with everything we saw. I figured it did not hurt to ask. A few minutes later, my wish was granted.

Back at the trailer, an Apache jumping spider was waiting on the door. I couldn’t bring myself to go inside until I’d photographed it.