{"id":25422,"date":"2014-07-30T06:34:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-30T12:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25422"},"modified":"2014-07-30T07:32:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T13:32:25","slug":"an-elk-calf-in-distress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/30\/an-elk-calf-in-distress\/","title":{"rendered":"An Elk Calf In Distress"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past Sunday morning as\u00a0I crested a very large hill (Monida Hill) at the\u00a0west end of the Centennial Valley I noticed an elk calf below me and behind a fence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

As soon as I stopped my pickup and the road noise quit I could\u00a0tell it was in distress from the\u00a0almost constant noise it was making.\u00a0 I don’t know what to call that sound so I’ll simply refer to it as a\u00a0\u00a0“call”.\u00a0 The sound was pitiful and almost heartbreaking to hear.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

To hear the sound and experience what it was like, readers may want to watch this video clip <\/a>before continuing with this post (it’s the same sound this calf was making).\u00a0 Some may wonder why the\u00a0driver didn’t simply pull away from the calf and leave it be but he was pulling a trailer with a big, noisy diesel pickup and\u00a0for the safety of the calf I think I’d have done the same thing.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

The calf continued to run along the fence line, changing directions several times.\u00a0 I could see no other elk but there were several deep ravines in the area where they could be hiding if there were any nearby at all.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

At one point the calf approached a Swainson’s Hawk perched on the post to the left but the hawk took off just before I snapped this photo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0little calf seemed so forlorn as it looked longingly over the\u00a0fence and continued to call out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

Then suddenly four more elk appeared out of the trees at the bottom of the ravine to my right – three adult cows and one younger calf.\u00a0 With my long lens I had to choose which of them I would photograph and at this\u00a0point\u00a0I didn’t get any decent shots of the other elk.\u00a0 Notice that these elk are on the near side of the fence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

Then the original calf and its mother were reunited but the fence was still between them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"elk<\/a><\/p>\n

After a few moments all five elk ran along the fence line to the west and disappeared in the hills and gulleys.\u00a0 These are the\u00a0\u00a0two calves with\u00a0the older one in front and still on the “wrong” side of the fence.\u00a0\u00a0I presume that\u00a0the older calf was eventually able to reunite with its mother.\u00a0 These fences are old and many of them are poorly maintained\u00a0so there’s usually ample opportunity to cross them, even for calves.<\/p>\n

But I don’t think I’ll forget the pitiful call of that calf anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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

This past Sunday morning as I crested a very large hill (Monida Hill) at the west end of the Centennial Valley I noticed an elk calf below me and behind a fence. As soon as I stopped my pickup and the road noise quit I could tell it was in distress from the almost constant noise it was making. I don’t know what to call that sound so I’ll simply refer to it as a “call”. The sound was pitiful and almost heartbreaking to hear. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25424,"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":[334,1601,1493],"tags":[1401,1335,555,1510,2119,1700,646],"class_list":["post-25422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-elk-mammals","category-montana-favorite-locations","tag-calf","tag-call","tag-centennial-valley","tag-elk","tag-monida-hill","tag-sound","tag-swainsons-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/elk-6207-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6C2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422","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=25422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}