Elk Bugling
Michael,
Beth and I had been reading in the local papers about Elk bugling during the on-going mating season, so we decided to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hear the bugling for ourselves. When I flashed my geezer pass at the entrance gate, I asked the ranger there, where is a good place to see elk? She was ready for that question, and handed us a little schematic map of where the good elk viewing sites are. After driving about half an hour, we spotted a harem of elk does, and a little further away, two bucks sparring. They were too far away for my camera, so I just shot a picture of a friendly Stellar’s Jay. Its feathers were as iridescent as a peacock’s (but blue).
After driving another half hour, and enjoying the colorful aspen and ash trees (see pictures)–yellow and a pale orange is the best you get here in the fall– we spotted a lone elk buck off in the meadow. He was bugling! But the sound is more like a high-pitched keening than any brass bugle I’ve ever heard. Sorry I didn’t have a 300-mm telephoto with audio recordingequipment. You’ll have to be content with this you-tube film.
–rakkity
Diane and I camped in Estes Park in the early eighties and we were thrilled by sounds of the bugling elk. Nothing like sleeping in the shadow of those mountains near where elk are butting heads. Years later we took Matthew and a tent to Alaska, but never pitched it because we felt there was nothing like sleeping outside near wandering grizzly bears.
We didn’t stay long in the park as the snows fell early that October. We packed-up our gear and stuffed it back into our rental car, and then very nearly slid off the mountainside on our way down to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We’d never been there, either, we were only intent on fleeing the falling white stuff. The canyon was virtually deserted and was/is as impressive as the park with its peaks.
I’d been out that-a-ways before, but never after living in the turn style section of the country, and on our way south we drove up and down smaller mountains and over passes and even took one harrowing windy gondola ride, all serendipitously. Thrilling sights in wide open spaces without long lines of traffic.
Our Tent
Comment by michael — September 29, 2007 @ 8:14 am
Our tent was up the mountainside, the elks below us in a river valley. And Rak, they were bugling. The high-pitched keening was just one note in their symphony.
The brass section was primal and thrilling. Only hearing my sister’s frozen lake shifting and moaning ominously has ever shaken my bones that way before.
Comment by Anon — September 29, 2007 @ 10:09 am
Cool bugling accompaniment! We’ll have to go looking & listening again.
Comment by rakkity — September 29, 2007 @ 11:43 am