Tag: bighorn sheep

Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn Ram, Yellowstone National Park

This is a photo of a bighorn sheep ram on the McMinn Bench at Mount Everts, Yellowstone National Park.

I haven’t been to Yellowstone for several years and planned to go this year until the big flood occurred.  One reason I wanted to go was to get more photos of bighorn sheep.  I don’t have many decent photos of them on my website.  The other day I decided to look through the photos I do have to see if I could find any that I thought were worth putting on my site.  After looking around, I decided to add the photo above and a couple of others.  It was shot in November of 2005 with an 8MP Canon 20D.

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Bighorn Ram, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of bighorn ram near the Yellowstone River.
Big Ram, Above Yellowstone River

I photographed this ram near the Yellowstone River picnic area on the road to Cooke City.  This area and the area where the last photo of the lamb was shot, the Gardner River Canyon, are two of the best places in the park to see bighorn sheep.

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Bighorn Lamb; Gardner River Canyon, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of bighorn lamb jumping.
For the Joy of It

My favorite time to be in Yellowstone is the spring.  Why?  The babies.  One of the reasons I like them is that they are so full of life.  They run around and jump in the air just for the joy of it.  The ones that run and jump the best are the bighorn lambs.  And they do  it on steep terrain.  Most herbivore babies are kept in hiding for the first couple of weeks until they can keep up with their moms.  Not lambs.  It is reported that they  climb as well as their mothers when they are only one day old.  I guess that lamb in the last post walked out of there the next day.

Notice how well this little lamb blends into its habitat.

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Bighorn Ewe and Newborn Lamb, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a bighorn ewe and new-born lamb.
Bighorn Ewe and New-born Lamb

I took this photo a year ago.  I’m posting it to show where this ewe gave birth.  As you can see, the ground is fairly steep and the surface is made up of a lot of small rocks that have eroded away from above.  Much  of it will eventually wind up at the bottom of the canyon.  The lamb has yet to stand up, although it has tried several times.  They were on the east side of the Yellowstone River Canyon and I was on the west side.  I shot this scene using a 500mm lens with a 2x tele-converter on a Canon 7D camera.  That adds up to 1600mm or 32 power.  The photo is also cropped a bit.  I would guess that I was 200-300 yards away.  Now, what I really want to show you is the next photo.

Photo of bighorn ewe and new-born lamb.
Bighorn Ewe and Lamb

This photo was taken with a full frame sensor camera and a 100-400mm lens at 100mm.  That would be 2 power.  Can you spot them?  From left to right they are just about centered.  From top to bottom they are about 65% from the top.  I’d say the lamb is safe from predators there, with the possible exception of eagles, but at some point they are going to have to walk out of there.  What route would you take?

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Yellowstone, America’s Best Wildlife Park

I’m in Yellowstone.   One of the things I like about it is you never know what you’ll see next.  It reminds me of that line in Forrest Gump when he quotes his mom:  “Life was like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.”  I don’t know of a better place to photograph wild mammals in the United States than here.

One of my favorite animals to photograph (and simply observe) here is the bighorn sheep.  This ram was using this big rock to scratch himself.  He started with his right side; then he did his left side, as you can see here; and finished by with his hindquarters.  If you look closely you can see the hair he left behind on the rock.

For a larger version of this photo you can check my website under “new Images” and/or “Bighorn Sheep.”    www.jimcoda.com