Keep eating big fella!

We hope those that follow this Blog don't become bored with the countless pictures of Elk.  This evening our mission once again was to capture images of newborn calves.  Sometimes the best laid out plans don't work out as we had hoped but it wasn't because of a lack of effort.  We got up on the hill perhaps an hour before the sun was to go down for the day.  Our plan was to head to the west end of Dewey and walk the saddle area.  The info we had was that there were several newly dropped calves in the area. Well, we don't doubt there were but we didn't get to see any tonight.

As we walked the saddle and actually circled the backside we came upon several cows that were acting suspicious.  By suspicious I mean they seemed to be guarding certain areas but yet there were no calves there.  As we walked through grass that was 3-4 foot high we were surprised several times when suddenly elk would pop up right in front of us.  This also meant that spotting a newborn would be extremely challenging.

So this night didn't produce the subject of our attention but it sure wasn't a total loss.  We did sneak close to this beauty of a bull.  He is awesome looking in velvet and looks to be on track to be a real nice 6 X 6 at least.  He was cooperative but yet still kept an eye on us.  We shot several images of him and then moved on.  My partner in life was a bit unhappy with me because I forgot to mention what the plan was for the evening.  She had sneakers on and wasn't really prepared for the hike that I took her on.  I guess I thought she would have noticed I had my hiking boots on.  I guess I should have mentioned that.  I also should have mentioned that we would be bushwacking and tick spray could come in handy. (lucky for me, there were no ticks this night) 

 Actually all things considered she was pretty patient with me up until the point that I mentioned that we needed to pick up the pace if we were to make it out before dark.  It was at this point that she wasn't worried about darkness because we could just walk the trail back to the truck.  It was also at this point when I mentioned we wouldn't be taking the trail and we weren't heading right back to the truck.  I wanted to swing around the back of the hill and that meant more bushwacking.  Just recently Jeanne learned about Spittlebugs as I introduced them in my other Blog, "Whoda' Thunk".  Well, let's just say that by the time we had made that last little swing around the backside we definitely went through the Spittlebug capital of the world.  I suppose she was happier before she learned that the foamy spittle comes out the anus of these little nymphs and her bare legs were now covered with spittle.  Oh well, another fun night in the bowels of nature!

As I said, the night wasn't a complete loss!