Yellowstone: Elk Watching

On Yellowstone's West Entrance Road, the evening of September 21st, we stopped in an area where we'd often seen elk before. We saw a few females on the left side of the river pictured below. Then, far off in the distance, a large bull elk emerged from trees on the right side of the river.

 

As we watched, the bull grazed his way toward the females on the other side of the river. He eventually crossed the river, showed his authority over the females, then crossed back to the other side alone. All of this was accompanied with bugling and tearing up the earth with his antlers. We couldn't have asked for a better show...unless the action might have included a battle between bulls.
 

I include this picture to show the scene of the action, as well as the reflections in the water.

Here, you can see some of the grass hanging off his antlers.

 Following are a few non-elk photos that I captured during slow times in the elk action:

 

A young Great Blue Heron

Possibly the same heron, flying low over the water.

The family belonging to this Sheltie were also watching the elk and the heron.

This rather lengthy post will wrap up our time in Yellowstone for this visit. However, there is much more to come from our 2013 western trip.

Thanks to Hilary at The Smitten Image for including this post as a Post of the Week.