**Just a note: Just click on the images to see them in a larger format.

“How can I make a unique image of a Bison?” I thought to myself. On our many trips to Yellowstone, we’ve photographed hundreds of Bison over the years. It takes something new and unique to make us want to stop and get our gear out and even attempt to make an image. Great light, a stampede, rolling in dust, fighting. But how about a backlit resting Bison? Doesn’t sound like much, but I like the backlit red “mane” and the fact that he’s looking over the edge of a precipice.

The most exciting wildlife encounter we had on the trip wasn’t really even an encounter. We had followed a game trail down to the Little Missouri River in the North Unit. Ryan popped out of the brush and onto the mud flats bordering the water. Amongst the Raccoon tracks, Mule Deer tracks and Bison tracks he found huge cat tracks. Nearly 4 inches across. The lack of claw imprints (cats can retract their claws), the fact that the track was wider than long, and the oval shape of the toe prints led us to believe they were Mountain Lion/Cougar tracks. The park wildlife biologist later confirmed it and said that they are a rarely seen but regular visitor to the park feeding on Mule Deer and Porcupine!

The last image is a running blur of a Pronghorn. Try slowing the shutter speed and panning to create an image that shows speed. While Pronghorn can top 60mph, this one was just bounding away at less than half speed.

Bison Backlit: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, f16 at 1/250, ISO 200, handheld from car

Mountain Lion tracks: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, f16 at 1/90, ISO 800, handheld

Pronghorn blur: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, f5.6 at 1/60 (Shutter Priority with auto ISO as I wanted only 1/60 second at f5.6), ISO 250, handheld

The North Dakota Badlands (Teddy Roosevelt National Park is just a portion of this landscape) are more vegetated than the stark South Dakota Badlands. In summer, these northern badlands can look downright lush. But it is still a graphic landscape where patterns come to life in the shadows and highlights of sunlit scenery. These three images just seemed to work better as black and whites. I simply converted them in Aperture 3 and adjusted the red, green and blue channels and tweeked levels and curves and contrast.

Some of the wild horses are handsome animals, others, like this one, are creatures of the landscape, rough and untamed and unkempt. The round rock is called a “cannon ball” concretion. It formed as minerals were deposited around a core within a substrate rock. We found a “congregation of concretions” in the North Unit of the park. I like the contrast of the round rock and the erosional ridges. Another image that just seemed to work better in black and white is the mud cracks along the edge of the Little Missouri River…A very abstract piece of nature’s art.

Mud cracks: Canon 7D, Canon 70-200mm f4 at 200mm, f16 at 1/60, ISO 400, tripod
Wild Horse: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, f8 at 1/1000, ISO 200, tripod
Cannon Ball Concretion: Canon 7D, Sigma 10-20mm, f16 at 1/500, ISO 400, handheld

We had planned on going out to Isle Royale in Lake Superior for a 4-day photo trip, but the ship captain called in mid September and said we were the only three passengers for two weeks on either side. So he was packing it in for the season on October 2nd. Time to make a new plan.

 
I suggested Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. I had done a couple backcountry hiking trips out there many years ago and remember all the interesting wildlife including Wild Horses, Bison, Elk, Black-tailed Prairie Dogs, Pronghorn Antelope, Bighorn Sheep, and how can we not include the Rattlesnakes and “Horny Toads” (actually Northern Short-horned Lizards). The land is more vegetated than the South Dakota Badlands and so—even though it’s still badlands—it is more hospitable to critters.

 
Ryan Marshik and I drove all night (9 hours) from Duluth, arriving at 4:30 am—two hours earlier than expected due to two factors; 1) MapQuest said it would take 10 hours but we had no traffic and no road construction and only stopped for gas. And 2) we counted on finding a breakfast spot in the early morning to eat a giant, greasy, gut-filling meal. But not even Dickinson had an all night diner, and Medora’s lone cafe in the off-season, is only open Monday through Wednesday (!).

 
So after an uncomfortable two-hour nap in the car, we headed out on the 36-mile loop. We found a heard of Bison in the campground and a flock of Wild Turkeys on the flats but this was before there was “shooting light.” A side trip up a dirt road towards Buck Hill netted us a mellow and large-racked Mule Deer buck. We followed him over a couple hills (lower photo). Mule Deer have dichotomously branched antlers unlike Whitetails which have one main beam with several tines coming off it. Muleys also have a unique escape gait in which they literally seem to bounce across the landscape, all fours in the air at one time (see photo below). Their name comes from their large, mule-like ears.

 
A band of Wild Horses next caught our attention.  They certainly have a different unkempt look compared to domestic horses. Each little band has a leader (thanks Chris!) who controls the group. He is usually the one that keeps a sharp eye on little humans with big cameras. The range of horse colors is amazing…some resembling Apaloosas, some sharing the color pattern of a Holstein cow! Wild Horses had been in the area for nearly a century but disappeared in the mid twentieth century. The current stock was reintroduced from Montana in the 1970s.

 
Our last stop before lunch was one of the many Prairie Dog towns that dot the park. It was great fun just sitting in their midst and watching their antics. I especially liked their alarm yip, where they would stand up, throw their head back and give a sharp yip. It is executed with so much force that I even saw one guy flip over backwards! If Prairie Dogs can show an embarrassed expression, this guy had it all over his face. See top photo.

 
And this was just the first morning! I will post several more journal entries from this quick 3-day trip in the coming days.
p.s. You can always click on a photo to see it in a larger format.

 
Prairie Dog yipping: Canon 7D, Canon 500mm f4 and 1.4x teleconverter, 1/1500 at f5.6, ISO 200, tripod with Whimberly head

Mule Deer buck head-on: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, 1/500 at f5.6, ISO 320, handheld

Wild Horses: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, 1/1000 at f5.6, ISO 100, tripod

Mule Deer bounding: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6, 1/30 at f9.5, ISO 100, handheld