Morning Wildlife
The badland formations here are flat gray and need warm light to create good images. With that in mind, I set my alarm for 4:15 to shoot sunrise along the Door Trail at the Big Badlands Overlook. I could have slept in. The sunrise light only lasted a couple of minutes and was never remotely warm. Sunrise was at 5:08, and I was back in the parking lot by 5:30.
It didn't look like it would be a good morning for shooting landscapes, so I started down the loop road looking for wildlife. I found the four bighorn we photographed last night, but they were mostly in the shade and warranted only a few "grab shots."
The next stop was much more interesting. I saw movement in the distance along the loop road, so I pulled over and got out my long lens. I initially thought I saw a small herd of pronghorn, but it turned out to be a coyote. This seems to be the year of the coyote. He was probably 200 yards from the road and heading toward a prairie dog colony. I followed him with my camera hoping I could photograph him when he "pounced" to get a prairie dog. I didn't realize at the time that he already had a prairie dog in his mouth when he approached the main colony. As he was trotting through the colony with his prize, I noticed four pronghorn antelope on the side of a hill.
As I was watching, another coyote separated a young pronghorn from the rest of the group and the chase was on. I'd never seen a pronghorn run "full out" before. It was impressive! The pronghorn completely embarrassed the coyote. In 20 yards, the pronghorn had left the coyote in the dust. The strange thing was that the other pronghorns on the hill shifted into top speed and chased after the coyote chasing the young pronghorn. The prairie dogs in the colony stood up and watched the pursuit behind them.
The coyote and pronghorn disappeared behind a small knoll, and all was quiet for few minutes. Suddenly, a white-tailed buck ran out of the draw followed by the four pronghorn. All were running at top speed down the valley in the opposite direction the coyote had run.
 |
Since I was there, I hiked down to the prairie dog colony that sprawled across the valley. There was the usual "getting to know you" period, but eventually I convinced a few that they could let me get close to photograph them. Just when I worked my way up to a group of prairie dogs, I ran out of storage in my camera. I deleted a few images I had taken earlier to free up some space, but it was only a temporary fix. I had to admit defeat and hiked back to the car.
 |
 |
My second stop to photograph prairie dogs resulted from two prairie dogs playing in the middle of the road. I had to stop and honk at them to keep from running over them. There were huge colonies on both sides of the road, so I had plenty of choices of what to shoot. I'd been shooting about 10 minutes when I realized I was hearing the normal warning chirps, but every few minutes I was also hearing more of a "conversational" call. It took a few minutes, but I noticed that every time I heard the conversational call, the prairie dogs in the colony would individually jump up and make the sound. It was like "pop goes the weasel" as the call progressed through the colony. I tried to photograph a prairie dog popping up, but I never knew which prairie dog would pop up or in what order they would act.
 |
 |
 |
I continued on the loop road checking all the turnouts for possible shooting locations where the light was better. I made the turn toward Sage Creek when I noticed a herd of bighorn sheep near the road. But no one was paying any attention to them. Instead, everyone was standing along the edge of the plateau looking down into the badlands. I figured it must be something good if they were ignoring a herd of bighorn sheep. I had no idea. On the ridges leading down into the badlands was an entire herd of bighorn sheep. They were all ewes with their lambs. There must have been between 50 and 75 bighorn concentrated in a relatively small area. The lambs were about two months old and seemed to be everywhere. I've never seen so many bighorn together, and two more smaller herds joined them just as I was ready to leave. I definitely want to come back here to shoot when the light is better.
 |
 |
It was after 9:00, so I decided it was time to return to camp. I was 24 miles away, so it would be close to 10:00 before I got back. Carol and I ate breakfast and lunch and then basically relaxed during the middle of the day while the light was flat.
Carol and I returned to the main park road for Golden Hour and made several stops to photograph Castle Peaks, White River Valley Overlook, and Homestead Overlook.
 |
 |
Previous Day
Return to Trip Page