May 25, 2013 Saturday, sunny 76*
REALLY? You meet all kinds in campgrounds!
Today we headed back for Custer State Park to do another loop through the wildlife trail but take some of the side roads which are just hard packed dirt but where the Buffalo had been spotted. The first few miles not much but a few antelope and then we came across a group of Buffalo probably 50 or so in size with some calves.
Then about a 1/2 mile later we hit the mother lode of Buffalo! We sat for nearly an hour and a half waiting to have them all pass, 300 + would be no exaggeration and is surely underestimated! We would no longer have them pass and move a hundred yards and another group would approach us.
As you can see the Buffalo own the road here! Although they seem quite docile I am sure they can become angry very easily and at 2000 pounds and more I would recommend not pissing them off.
Most seemed to have a calf so there were quite a few babies in the herd.
Below is one with barely the strength to pay attention to what we were doing but momma was keeping a close eye!
Below you can see one of them taking a dirt bath.
The one in the middle of the road has her calf with her and we had to wait 20 minutes while it nursed before it moved off the road
This one woke up with a bad hair day!
As you can see they are just spread all over and we probably saw them for a couple of miles. The herd is culled to about 1500 every year with the extra being sold to the public. The majority of private held buffalo originally came from this herd in Custer State Park.
Here is a YouTube link to a video I took, be sure to come back and finish reading!
We ran across these pronghorn antelope on the beginning of the trip.
Last night we had a tornado watch till 10:00pm but never got any bad weather fortunately but the skies cleared late evening and I was able to get a couple shots. One of the full moon called the Full Flower Moon named so for the flowers growing abundantly in the area this time of year. The below pic I am posting cause the clouds looked cool crossing the moon but the moon was so bright my exposure was to long and I didn't have time to correct it before the clouds passed so the moon is just a white globe.
This picture I got the exposure is much better and some better detail is in the moon.
After that I trtried another star trail picture, once again it made it tough with the moon so bright but I still managed to capture the rotation. This was a 30 minute exposure using 100 ISO speed and I think my F-Stop was about 8.. You can see Polaris (north star) near bottom of picture that the others rotate around. This was with a wide angle lens set at 11mm, the picture would have been better if darker and I had some other items in the picture like trees or a building but this works well also, I am sure I will have some more opportunities in the cure although may be limited with the loss of night time the further north we go.
We have to say that coming to Custer and seeing all the animals was a fantastic experience and we would like to thank our traveling friends Terry and Dale for sharing it with us!
It's back on the road agin tomorrow heading for Wyoming and crossing into Canada later next week.
Today is laundry and rest day as the last couple have been busy exploring. I could post a laundry pic but it would probably bore you......... Oh what the heck!
We will see what tomorrow brings if there is anything deserving of an update :)
Traveling into the wind heading west is a real killer on fuel mileage and comes at the expense of 2-3 miles per gallon depending on what wind speed is. Tomorrow is mostly north so hopefully better.
Ps:
REALLY? You meet all kinds in campgrounds!
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1 comment:
Awww, shucks Tab. We enjoyed sharing it with someone. It is a really neat experience and we saw more here this time with you guys than we have ever seen. It's been a great stop on the way to Alaska. Getting us primed for the moose and bear!
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