windymtnman
Active member
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Messages
- 484
We retired from Wisconsin 5 years ago, and built our ranch in the mountain foothills. Our ranch is surrounded on 3 sides by Federal Forest lands, with the summits of 13,000 ft. mountains 5 miles behind the place.
Since Easter, we've had a herd of Elk that has been coming down to the meadow just South of our place and feeding in the night. The herd has been consistently growing larger by the day, and for the past couple mornings is estimated at least 125. We can't count them accurately because of the way they move in and out of sight, and their general meandering. We see the obviously pregnant cows, a couple spike still carrying their headgear & sparing, one that's got a pronounced limp, and a couple cows rearing up and flailing their hooves at each other.
Last Winter, I got a pic of a modest herd with a cow wearing one of the D.O.W. radio collars, however in this big herd, I haven't seen a single one. (Last I knew, there were about 60 collared cows left in the area migration study.)
So, we get up, sip our coffee, and watch with binoculars. We moved a trail camera over to a funnel we see them walking through, so hopefully will have more close up videos.
We don't take this for granted, and appreciate the special place the Lord blessed us with.
Here's a couple pics from April 19th. Wish I could upload a video, they are much nicer to watch.
Since Easter, we've had a herd of Elk that has been coming down to the meadow just South of our place and feeding in the night. The herd has been consistently growing larger by the day, and for the past couple mornings is estimated at least 125. We can't count them accurately because of the way they move in and out of sight, and their general meandering. We see the obviously pregnant cows, a couple spike still carrying their headgear & sparing, one that's got a pronounced limp, and a couple cows rearing up and flailing their hooves at each other.
Last Winter, I got a pic of a modest herd with a cow wearing one of the D.O.W. radio collars, however in this big herd, I haven't seen a single one. (Last I knew, there were about 60 collared cows left in the area migration study.)
So, we get up, sip our coffee, and watch with binoculars. We moved a trail camera over to a funnel we see them walking through, so hopefully will have more close up videos.
We don't take this for granted, and appreciate the special place the Lord blessed us with.
Here's a couple pics from April 19th. Wish I could upload a video, they are much nicer to watch.
