Wandering Wildlife
- Denise Dethlefsen
- Apr 29
- 4 min read
Many years ago, my husband and I started a friendly competition to see which of us would spot the first wildlife along our drives. Over time, the competition has been slightly refined; for example, pronghorns no longer count as the 'first' sighting because they're so common
where we live and where we often drive. Our biggest 'win' is for whoever sees an elk or a herd of elk! And a great day is when we see at least a trifecta of big game species -- deer,
elk, moose, bighorns, mountain goats, pronghorn -- in any combination.
In addition to the big game, we're always on the lookout for smaller animals, and have seen at least one of all these on any given drive: coyotes, foxes, ground squirrels and prairie dogs, beavers, badgers, as well as birds -- flickers, mountain bluebirds, shrikes, wild turkeys, eagles, ospreys, hawks, owls, and blue herons, to name just a few.
A couple of our recent drives netted more wildlife in a single day than we've seen in years. In fact, we'd seen so few elk over the past three years that it seemed they'd all moved to different states. We learned it's partly been our bad timing, since the recent high-wildlife-sighting drives were taken just before and just after snowstorms.
The elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) we saw on these recent trips were still shedding their
winter coats and looked so scruffy and unkempt! The rough coat of the young bull pictured here was a definite contrast to the sleek pelt of the prairie dog in the photo above (both animals were seen the same day). And, although they're not evident in this image, the elk was already growing his new antlers for next fall.
The elk cows that were part of just one herd of more than 100 individuals we saw several days before were nearly as untidy in their appearance. They hadn't yet separated to begin calving, so the three herds we saw were unusually large, with no fewer than 60 animals in each. Additionally, I have photos of several mule deer (Odocoileus
hemionus) from an earlier spring while we were in Wyoming that were so bedraggled they almost looked ill, although this is completely normal. It's pretty astonishing how quickly they go from scruffy to sleek as the weather warms, too.
That year, we made several trips through Wyoming and I was able to photograph deer while some were still carrying most of their winter coats and looking really homely, and then just a few weeks later, we saw a few polished up for summer, as seen in the pair of photos below.
It was a similar story with the moose (Alces alces) we saw that year. I got summer photos of a very friendly guy in a willow thicket as he browsed one evening after I'd acquired less
successful images of another, scruffier individual just a short time earlier. This one allowed us to stay and watch him for a long time. He had two buddies well up the hill across the road from us that were more shy and didn't come down to join the party.
We see pronghorn antelope (Antiocapra americana) far more frequently than I can photograph them because they're often seen from a distance, and will run away when they see us stopping our vehicle. The fawn pictured here and its mother were unusual in that they didn't seem bothered by our presence and let me take several photos before they moved off.
When it comes to finding and photographing bison (bison bison), I haven't been able to decide whether to think of them as wild animals or as feral, since most bison in our area are found on large ranches. However,
they're not domestic by any means, even when they're somewhat enclosed in a ranch setting. I recall seeing a documentary about a ranched herd, and even when the animals were familiar with the rancher, he was very careful to give them plenty or room.
Looking at these images, I noticed a lot of them are in shades of brown and tan! So, I'll add one final photo from a camping trip in New Mexico, where we saw mountain bluebirds (Sialia currucoides) all the days we were there. These small birds migrate into and out of Colorado, which is part of their breeding range. A population of them remains year-round primarily in northern New Mexico and Arizona. These brilliantly colored members of the thrush family
can be found all the way from Alaska to central Mexico depending on the time of year. Their range also overlaps in places with the ranges of Eastern and Western bluebirds.
I hope you enjoyed this sample of some of the animals we've seen ambling through our various adventures in the Rocky Mountain west. Check out the rest of my website, www.denisedethlefsen.com, to find the perfect piece of art for your home, office or commercial space. Feel free to reach out to me via e-mail with any questions you have about my work!
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