Rocky Mountain National Park

Hello Everyone,

On Wednesday, Sept. 25th, we left early (or so we thought) and drove 15 miles to the park. We tried several viewing areas before we found any wildlife that was close enough to view or attempt to take pictures.
This is the time of the year that elk choose mates known as the "rut". The bull elk have a mating ritual that involves a unique mating sound that they emit to draw the attention of females, who then become breeding mates. It is not unusual to find a large bull elk with a harem of several females. There were bull Elk bugling far off, but only one close enough to photograph with a long-range lens at Beaver Creek.

Later that day, around 5:30PM we went back into the national park to the Beaver Creek area again. 

This time we were more successful and found a huge Bull Elk with a harem of 21 cows (female elk). It was interesting to watch him constantly bugling and trying to round up the females as they wandered off away from the group. He also had to fend off the attempts of other bull elk who were attempting to lure the females to leave the harem and come with them.

Here the bull is rounding up one of his "ladies" who has wandered too far away from the rest of his harem. His antler rack is about six or seven feet wide, denoting his age. Elk antlers are shed in the winter and regrow each year at a rate of about one inch per day on a healthy adult male.

We also fund a single female moose not far away in a grove of conifers (pine trees). She was grazing and keeping track of her offspring who was mostly hidden in the among the dense pines.

We asked the rangers at the visitors center where we could go the see more moose and they suggested we explore Monarch Lake south of the park near Grand Lake, CO.

Tomorrow we will be driving to Monarch Lake to hopefully see some moose in the wild😊.