Hiding in the Snow
by Judi Dressler
Title
Hiding in the Snow
Artist
Judi Dressler
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
It was snowing, and I almost missed the bull elk hiding in the snowy field, but the antlers gave him away. I love how he seems to be peeking out over the vegetation. The reality was that he was resting, his body hidden in the snowy grass. The photo was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, during a fluke snow storm in early September. Temperatures had been around 100 degrees F in Denver, when overnight they dropped by over 60 degrees and the snow fell. A couple days later we were back in the 80s!
Elk are also called wapiti, a Native American word that means “light-colored deer.” Elk are related to deer but are much larger than most of their relatives. A bull elk's antlers may reach 4 feet above its head, so that the animal towers 9 feet tall, and a mature bull elk weighs around 700 pounds.
Bull elk lose their antlers each March, but they begin to grow them back in May in preparation for the late-summer breeding season.
During the late summer breeding season the bugling of bull elk echoes through the mountains. These powerful animals strip the velvet off their new antlers using them in violent clashes that determine who gets to mate with whom. Males with the bigger antlers, typically older animals, usually win these battles and dominate small herds.
Photo taken on September 8, 2020, in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
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Descriptive keywords and tags for this image include elk, bull elk, male, winter, snow, snowing, hiding, rockies, rocky mountain national park, majestic, antlers, wapiti, deer, horns, buck, resting, wild, wildlife, colorado, cervidae, cervus canadensis, mammals, animals, nature, judi dressler, and dressler.
Uploaded
December 9th, 2020
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