It has been a long time since I have been able to witness this action between these beasts of the Great Plains.

Cold weather usually makes the wildlife active and this past Saturday, these two younger bulls were having a lot of fun sparring in the winter chill. For more than a half hour, the two pushed, shoved and stabbed at each other going back and forth. That yielded me hundreds of fun pics of the action.

It isn’t rut season so this was most likely just “playing” but goodness, it looked pretty darned rough and painful to me!

A fresh six inches of snow and morning temps in the single digits. Looks like fun, right? Hoar frost covered the foliage – and the bison – making for some pretty cool (pun intended) captures.

This big fella was, of course, unbothered by the weather conditions this past Saturday morning. He and his buddies were just nosing the snow aside and enjoying breakfast like normal while I sat nice and toasty inside my truck.

Truly an impressive beast and worthy of being featured on Tatanka Tuesday.

Finally! New Year’s Eve / Day brought much-needed snowfall to the Colorado Front Range, our first decent storm of the season.

Normally the cold and snow would make the bison pretty active but on the day after the storm, they were quite mellow and didn’t do anything particularly interesting. Off in the distance, a small part of the herd was grazing.

Heat vapors from the warming sun bouncing off the snow distorted things quite a bit but still made for a pleasant scene.

Kind of reminds me of when I was a kid and we would be excited to see our breath on a chilly day. 😉

The ridiculously warm and dry weather on the Colorado Front Range thus far this season have not allowed me to capture my usual “snowy bison” pics I love so much. This past Sunday though temps did drop into the upper teens allowing a layer of frost to develop on the terrain and the critters.

This massive bull didn’t seem too keen on having his breakfast interrupted by this photographer but he did give me a cool (pun intended) look for an instant making a nice shot to share on today, Tatanka Tuesday.  😉

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge recently moved most of the bison herd to the west side of the refuge. While this oftentimes put them on the “wrong” side of a fence, preventing close encounters, it does allow for cool scenes like this. I always love seeing these majestic beasts graze with those awesome Rocky Mountains in the background.

Now, Mother Nature, let’s talk about getting us some much-needed snow!

Rugged. That seems like an apt description of this monstrous bison bull I photographed last weekend.

He is one of the big boys at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge near Denver, Colorado and worthy of respect for sure.

It used to be we called these creatures “buffalo” but that actually was incorrect. 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. Today is National Bison Day so it is a fitting time to share this image.

Certainly a scene that I have captured and shared many times but it is one that I just never seem to tire of. The quiet of sunrise on the Colorado plains and the warmth the rising sun brings make for a nice day to be out and about. Throw in a group of our official national mammal grazing peacefully on the grass and I could look at this all day long.