Butting heads
It's all in fun...this time
One winter’s evening
As I was heading home from a day of photography for a client, I noticed a couple of bull elk off the road a ways.
Quickly, I found a spot hidden from view by a little hill just past where I noticed the bulls, and I eased out of the truck with my camera and tripod in hand.
Using the tripod more as a monopod, I crept into view of the elk.
As I figured out my settings and got focused on them, they started sparring.
Pushing each other back and forth, they locked antlers.
Lucky for me, they hadn’t noticed me yet, and I got to watch them spar for a couple of minutes, and then they would graze for a bit.
They weren’t too wound up but would walk around and graze and then would ease up to the other, and they would spar for a few minutes and then go back to wandering.
A couple of times they looked towards me, like they knew I was there but were not too concerned.
Thanks for tagging along with my Scenic Journey.
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To see more of my work or to work together (that would be awesome) you can go to my website www.ryanmcgehee.com
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Captured the moment perfectly. Those practice sparring sessions in winter are crucial for bulls maintaning their dominance hierarchies between rut seasons. I've seen similar behavior where they spar super casually like this and then just go back to feeding, almost like they're just staying in shape for next fall. The relaxed body language tells alot.