Tag Archives: bull

A Family of Elk Along Bow River

While walking down by the Bow River, we saw a family of elk off in the distance. They were crossing the river downstream. We continued on our walk and, when we finished the loop trail, we were back at the same spot and saw plenty of people on the bridge staring in the same direction. I hurried up to see what was afoot and the elk had moved up the river to close where we were. Oh, how I wish I had a longer lens!

Amazingly, the people along the river seemed to have no interest in the warnings you always get about wildlife. They were getting way closer than seemed wise. The bull elk was a chunky looking fella and, with some of his herd there, I imagine his temper might be tested. Fortunately, nothing went wrong. Interestingly, he had a tree branch stuck in his antlers when we first saw him. He did manage to shake that out after a while. It made him look lopsided!

Bull Elk

Our ride through the refuge was covered in this post.  Scattered throughout the herd were a large number of bull elk.  At this time of year they are not competing for anything other than food so there was little tension between them.  Instead, they seemed focused on feeding.  However, they still had antlers so they made an imposing sight when they looked the right way.

When It All Goes Wrong on (or off) the Bull

AE7I3897.jpgThe first few of the bull riders at Rowell Ranch Rodeo seemed to do pretty well and make it for the full duration.  It turns out that this was an aberration and the remainder of the riders seemed to have a lot of problems.  Some still went the distance but a lot of them were thrown off.  Getting thrown from a bull is a risky proposition.

AE7I3839.jpgLet’s put aside the problem with falling at speed from an animal.  Instead, contemplate being on the ground and a little disoriented when you need to get out of the way of a seriously pissed off bull that weighs a lot!  This is where the other people come in to play.  Their role is to distract the attention of the bull away from the rider while someone helps him get to his feet.  It is something that looks perilous and, I imagine, it is.

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Riding the Bulls

AE7I3832.jpgMy visit to the Rowell Ranch Rodeo was the night of the bull riding.  I had never seen this in person before and was curious to see how things went.  It was an evening show and the clouds had rolled in so it was pretty dark, even early in the evening.  They had floodlights but they were not doing too much for me so I was really testing the high ISO capabilities of the camera for the first time.  I was often shooting at 51,200.  I have to say that, while the shots are not super clean, they are not too bad at all.

AE7I3860.jpgThe most dramatic moments seemed to be shortly after they came out of the chute.  The bulls leap into the air and the rider hangs on like crazy.  It seemed that, if they made it through the initial period, they often went the full time.  If they were unsettled initially, they were struggling from then on.  More to come of that…

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