There’ll be no birds today. Instead\u00a0I’ll focus on a mature buck pronghorn\u00a0and his\u00a0tireless efforts to keep his unruly harem of\u00a0does under\u00a0his control and away from two competing\u00a0bucks.\u00a0Believe me, it was no easy task. And I’ll close with some photos that illustrate why the Flaming Gorge area is among my favorite places to camp.\u00a0And it isn’t even in Montana!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mia and I spent most of this week on a camping\/photography trip to Flaming Gorge, Utah and\u00a0I\u00a0had some\u00a0spectacular photographic opportunities with pronghorns. We camped on\u00a0a beautiful,\u00a0isolated and\u00a0narrow\u00a0peninsula protruding into the lake\u00a0and it happened that a buck pronghorn was using the restrictive\u00a0topography of the peninsula to help him keep control of his very large harem of does.\u00a0The herd consisted of the lone buck and roughly 28 females including a few younger animals. The\u00a0buck was in full rut and\u00a0frantic to keep his\u00a0ladies together\u00a0as he\u00a0tried to\u00a0prevent several other extremely persistent\u00a0bucks on the periphery of the band\u00a0from running off with them one by one.<\/p>\n Does have a variety of mating strategies.\u00a0Some does, called “sampling females,” will\u00a0visit several\u00a0bucks during the breeding season if allowed to do so.\u00a0Others,\u00a0referred to as “inciting females,”\u00a0behave as sampling females until they come into estrus when they move off from the males which\u00a0incites fights and aggressive competition between the competing bucks. These females always<\/em>\u00a0immediately mate with the winning male.\u00a0Some females employ a third strategy\u00a0where they join a single male and remain with him throughout estrus – these does are called “quiet females.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/800, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n This poor buck\u00a0was trying to control at least 28\u00a0does with varying\u00a0mating strategies\u00a0in his harem\u00a0and he really struggled to accomplish it. One evening we were at the bottom of a string of small hills just as the sun was setting (which explains the extremely warm light in these photos).\u00a0The buck and his\u00a0harem were strung out on the crest of several of the hills and one of the does was\u00a0giving him a hard time by trying to escape the herd and join one of two other bucks that were almost constantly hanging around the periphery of the harem.<\/p>\n I saw the female bolt but so did the buck and he reacted instantly.\u00a0Here he has just crested the hill into the warm\u00a0light from the setting sun and is accelerating toward her in an effort to head her off. I really like this shot because it looks like he has just exploded onto the scene and into the light, which he had.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n Five frames later (firing at full burst rate of my 7D) he has now\u00a0gained amazing speed –\u00a0pronghorns are second only to the cheetah as the fastest land animals on earth. In this shot I was tickled to get all four feet off the ground. I think having blue sky between his feet and the ground\u00a0is unusual and pretty neat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n Three frames later I caught this interesting foot\/leg position. The doe was still some distance ahead of him but he was quickly gaining on her as she ran toward the buck on the periphery of the herd.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n In this\u00a0photo the escaping female is just below the buck and lower on the hill but out of the frame. He’s attempting to get slightly ahead of her and then\u00a0turn in front of her and force her back to the herd and away from the other waiting\u00a0buck – a maneuver I witnessed\u00a0multiple times with this\u00a0buck over\u00a0several\u00a0days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1250, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n Sadly I lost sharp focus on the only shot that includes at least part of the\u00a0doe\u00a0as he began to turn in front of her\u00a0but I include it here so you can actually see the\u00a0doe he’s trying to control.\u00a0Here she has apparently conceded defeat\u00a0as she begins\u00a0to slow down a little and he’s\u00a0starting to put the brakes on himself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/1600, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, EF 500mm f\/4L IS USM + 1.4 tc<\/em><\/p>\n A\u00a0few seconds later the\u00a0doe had returned to the herd and the buck was standing\u00a0at the top of the hill as he surveyed his domain and his harem, both of which were safe for the moment.<\/p>\n This\u00a0male had a very\u00a0hard time of it while we were there. He\u00a0rarely ate or even rested.\u00a0Most of his time was spent keeping\u00a0wayward females from\u00a0escaping, marking territory\u00a0or running off the other two bucks, which he did many times. Occasionally he would snatch a bite or two as he patrolled his harem but he certainly couldn’t browse contentedly like the rest of his band did most of the time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of\u00a0several\u00a0mistakes I made with the pronghorns\u00a0was not taking some photos of the\u00a0entire large\u00a0herd from a distance. In my efforts to approach them and watch their behaviors I just didn’t think of it. Next time I’ll know better.\u00a0But this image does show the buck keeping a watchful eye on a small portion of his harem on the top of one of the adjoining hills.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n My camping trailer is the small white speck marked by the red arrow in the middle of the photo. As you can imagine, our campsite was spectacular,\u00a0isolated, right on the water and we had a grand view as you’ll see in my last photo below.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This\u00a0was our view from the picture window of my trailer. It was eye-suckingly gorgeous and we had the entire peninsula mostly to ourselves for the entire time we were there. I rarely even saw any boats on the water. In the spring and early summer I’ve photographed nesting Osprey nearby and one of the few pairs of nesting Bald Eagles in all of\u00a0Utah\u00a0raises their family just out of frame to the left. Loons often swim near the shore below our camp site and Golden Eagles and coyotes patrol the area.<\/p>\n It goes without saying that we were in our element on that trip and we’ve made it several times before and since. It’s one of the destinations I had in mind when I bought a new camping trailer a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n It’s going to be a long winter…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A big change of pace for Feathered Photography today.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/pronhorn-7448-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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The area where I photographed these pronghorn behaviors can be seen in this photo. The peninsula we were on\u00a0is the narrow spit of land in the middle between the two arms of the lake.\u00a0The peninsula ends near the middle of one small part of the huge lake out of frame to the left. The hills that the pronghorn were on in the previous photos are those on the left half of the peninsula that show some shade on one side. I was photographing from my pickup on a dirt-track\u00a0“road” just\u00a0below them.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/flaming-gorge-9028-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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