Every child has heard those words uttered by their mother. Wildlife though, tends to go their own way, often with more dangerous hardware to yield. These two, young bison bulls had a bit of a sparring session recently and indeed, one’s horns did come perilously close to the other combatant’s eye.

These guys are impressive just standing alone but when you see them go head-to-head, you get a real appreciation of the sheer power they have. A full grown bull can weigh as much as 2,000 pounds and stand nearly 6 feet tall. These two were smaller than that but no less impressive.

A bison bull takes a big whiff of a cow as they follow along with the herd. Perhaps a precursor to love? Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day  after all. 😉 

It truly was a pretty cold and miserable day today on the Great Plains of Colorado. I think it was about -2 degrees when I took this image and colder temps lie in wait for the next 36 hours or so.

My photo outing didn’t yield anything too extraordinary, probably because I wasn’t too keen on getting out and walking. The one time I did, I think my snot froze in my nose. 😀

“Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam…” Wish granted! 😉

Taken last weekend, this handsome fellow was walking along the prairie, grazing intermittently. Behind him, the snow-capped Rockies were standing tall and looking typically beautiful.

While they are part of the same family that includes the European and African buffalo, the bison is its own, distinct species. It is believed they were called buffalo by early North American explorers due to their resemblance to the Old-World species. Native Americans call them Tatanka, a Lakota word that translated means “bull buffalo.”

In May 2016 the Bison became the official mammal of the United States, a fitting and long overdue honor. Taken at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge near Denver, Colorado.

Quite a change in weather here on the Colorado Front Range. We are finally receiving some much-needed precipitation in the form of snow. Throw in temperatures only in the teens and it almost seems more like January than the end of October.

While I personally don’t really care for the cold, these big guys are built to withstand it and it doesn’t phase them one bit.

For photography, the snow does present a challenge as focusing is tough and even if you focus correctly, the snow obscures the subject. I spent some time with these bulls this morning and played around with slow shutter speeds to blur the snow. A high contrast conversion to black and white seemed to make for a pretty cool shot.

One for Tatanka Tuesday. No color manipulation at all for this image of these massive creatures taken this past weekend. They were heading off toward the rising sun and the hazy, orange sky from the wildfires coupled with the dust they were kicking up created kind of a cool scene.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I haven’t had much luck getting pics of spring babies. Thankfully I appear to be putting that behind me, in part due to this cute one.

This bison calf was moving along with the herd as they relocated from one area to one more public. It wanted to be a bit shy, staying behind mom while watching me watching it.

Native Americans call bison Tatanka, a Lakota word that translated means “bull buffalo.” In May 2016 the bison became the official mammal of the United States, a fitting and long overdue honor.