Our fourth day in the Tetons began under another round of stormy skies. The weather system that had moved in the previous afternoon was still hanging around, bringing dark clouds and overcast conditions across much of the valley.
We started the morning with a bull moose making his way through the sagebrush against a backdrop of dark mountains and clouds. There was just enough light catching his antlers to separate them from the otherwise moody scene.
I managed to capture a few photographs I was happy with before we continued on.
When People Get Too Close
We moved on toward the south eastern end of the park where we encountered two more bull moose. Both were beautiful animals, and under different circumstances, it could have been a wonderful opportunity to photograph them. Unfortunately, we weren't the only people who'd noticed them.
What unfolded was one of the most frustrating things I witnessed during the trip. People were approaching far too closely, many with cell phones raised, apparently determined to get their photographs regardless of what the moose were doing. Some were moving around the animals, effectively surrounding them and pushing them off the open flat toward the trees. And sadly, it wasn't just casual tourists. There were photographers participating in the same behavior. I was furious. Not because their behavior was ruining our photographic opportunity, although admittedly, that sucked too. But because these were wild animals being crowded and pressured by people who seemed completely oblivious to the potential consequences.
There are moments when I genuinely wonder how some people have managed to survive as long as they have. Shouldn’t natural selection be a thing?? I was waiting to witness a thousand-pound bull moose remind someone about personal space, but for reasons I won’t understand, the bull moose where way more tolerant than I was.
Eventually, the bulls were pushed back into the trees, and our group decided to move on.
We didn't come away with the photographs we'd hoped for, but frankly, that was the least concerning part of the encounter.
Pronghorn and Fall Colors
One of the things I was really hoping to improve during this trip was my ability to photograph wildlife within its environment. Later that day, a group of pronghorn presented a beautiful opportunity to do exactly that. Once again, we put some of the fieldcraft we'd been practicing into use. This time, the pronghorn were farther away, and the setting was completely different from what I'm accustomed to photographing at home.
Around Flaming Gorge, I typically encounter pronghorn in expanses of dry grass and sagebrush. There can be a wonderful simplicity to that landscape, but photographically, everything often blends into similar shades of brown and gray. Here, the animals were standing against a backdrop of golden fall foliage, with green grass stretching across the foreground. It was a beautiful contrast. Rather than needing to get close for a portrait, I could allow the animals to remain relatively small in the frame and use the surrounding landscape as part of the composition.
I came away with one of my favorite pronghorn photographs I've taken to date.
And as much as I love a good wildlife portrait, I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to photographs that give the animal a sense of place.
A Little Bison Behavior
We also spent time with a herd of bison, which gave me another opportunity to work on something I'd been learning throughout the trip. Getting low. I've always made an effort to photograph wildlife from a lower perspective. Usually that means squatting down and trying to get closer to eye level. What I was learning, though, was that sometimes I needed to get even lower. Not necessarily with my entire body, but with the camera itself. By lowering the lens closer to the vegetation, I could introduce more soft, blurred foreground into the frame, helping create depth and separate the animal from its surroundings. It sounds like a fairly simple adjustment. And it is, but seeing the difference it made in the resulting photographs was eye opening. I captured several bison portraits that are easily among my favorites to date.
As we continued watching the herd, I noticed a bull paying particularly close attention to one cow. He appeared intent on keeping her to himself, staying close and separating her from the rest of the herd whenever she tried to move along. He repeatedly licked her and rested his head and chin across her back, sometimes applying pressure as though encouraging her to lower her body. We watched him repeat variations of this behavior several times, giving us plenty of opportunities to photograph the interaction. The cow, meanwhile, seemed thoroughly unimpressed by all the attention. She mostly just stood there, occasionally trying to move along before he positioned himself beside her again. Apparently, subtlety wasn't this guy's strong suit. What we were observing appeared consistent with tending, a behavior in which a bull stays close to a cow and attempts to maintain access to her during the breeding season. At one point, he also raised his head and curled his upper lip in what appeared to be the flehmen response, a behavior that helps mammals investigate chemical signals, including those associated with reproduction.
The peak of the bison rut generally occurs in July and August, so observing this kind of behavior in October was particularly interesting. I don't know whether the cow was receptive or whether anything eventually came of his persistence. But watching the interaction unfold gave me an opportunity to photograph something more interesting than another bison standing in a field. And after seeing him repeat the same routine five or ten times, I certainly had enough photographs to document his efforts.
A Quiet Evening Among the Cottonwoods
As evening approached, we hiked into a campground that had been closed to the public the previous day. We hoped the absence of people might have encouraged moose to move back into the area. We walked through the quiet campground, surrounded by cottonwoods and the sounds of birds singing somewhere among the trees. After the activity of the day, it was a welcome change of pace.
Just as the light began to fade, we encountered two cow moose. One was feeding while the other rested nearby. At first, I thought we might be looking at a mother and calf, but when the resting moose stood up, it became clear that both were adults.
We settled in at a distance and watched them quietly. Despite being in a large campground, the place was empty except for our little group and a few staff. There were no crowds of visitors, no photographers scrambling for a better position, and no one pushing the animals around. Just the sound of birds in the trees and two moose going about their evening. Every so often, the cows would look past us toward the river. I wondered and desperately hoped that a bull was making its way across the stream and would magically step out in the last bit of light. Wouldn’t that have been an incredible way to end the night? But that dream never came to fruition, and that was fine.
After watching the two bulls get crowded into the trees earlier that morning, there was something especially satisfying about ending the day this way. We had the opportunity to observe two moose feeding peacefully among the autumn cottonwoods, with enough space and quiet to simply enjoy the encounter.
No drama. No crowds. And for once, nobody seemed particularly interested in ruining a perfectly good wildlife encounter.
