{"id":136010,"date":"2023-05-18T05:14:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=136010"},"modified":"2023-05-18T05:26:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:26:57","slug":"a-pronghorns-predicament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/18\/a-pronghorns-predicament\/","title":{"rendered":"A Pronghorn’s Predicament"},"content":{"rendered":"

Double jeopardy from the same source.<\/p>\n

I’ll be honest about my initial reaction to this handsome pronghorn buck. When I see pronghorn or bison on Antelope Island I usually pass them by unless they’re in good light and doing something unusual or interesting. Both species are common on the island and if they’re near the road there’s typically a cluster of tourist vehicles near them. I don’t do well in crowds.<\/p>\n

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So, two days ago when I spotted this buck near the road in a fairly remote area of the island I drove right on by, but then I felt guilty about doing so. After all, he was close to the road, he was in good light, he wasn’t obstructed by the ubiquitous mullein on the island and there were no tourist vehicles to be seen. And besides, ‘common’ doesn’t mean uninteresting.<\/p>\n

So I turned around and got him in my viewfinder. I’m glad I did.<\/p>\n

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Pronghorn bucks have scent glands (subauricular glands) embedded in their black cheek patches that they use to scent mark vegetation – typically mullein or teasel. The process of scent marking is called “cheek rubbing” and I see pronghorn bucks doing it often. Typically they mouth or sniff the tip of the stalk or branch and then rub it with their scent gland in their black cheek patch.<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what this buck was doing to patches of dried mullein as he walked along.<\/p>\n

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But he got into trouble when he got to this spot. Here he’s attempting to rub his scent gland on one or both of the dark mullein stalks beneath and behind his chin and neck.<\/p>\n

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But there was a bleached, white sunflower? stalk right next to the mullein that…<\/p>\n

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became entangled in his fur and left horn. So when he lifted his head…<\/p>\n

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the sunflower stalk…<\/p>\n

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came along for the ride. I’d say he looks befuddled. And more than a little silly.<\/p>\n

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At first he tried to ignore it, probably hoping it would just drop off. When that didn’t happen as he walked along…<\/p>\n

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he eventually lowered his head as he walked in an attempt to dislodge it.<\/p>\n

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It worked, but only temporarily. The sunflower stayed on the ground as he walked over it with his front feet but when…<\/p>\n

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he tried to walk over it with his back feet…<\/p>\n

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it became problematic again. In an attempt to get rid of it a second time he kicked his rear right leg a couple of times but…<\/p>\n

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at first that only made things worse. I took almost 30 photos before he finally…<\/p>\n

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was able to get rid of the pesky sunflower (if that’s what it is). After that he nonchalantly walked off as if nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

I don’t giggle very often but I was giggling at this guy the entire time. I prefer to think of it as more of a snicker.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Double jeopardy from the same source. (14 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,373],"tags":[31,507,211,1687,258,6903,6902,6904],"class_list":["post-136010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-pronghorns","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-buck","tag-male","tag-mullein","tag-pronghorn","tag-scent-gland","tag-scent-marking","tag-subauricular-glands"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/pronghorn-5403-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-znI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136010"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136063,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136010\/revisions\/136063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}