Running Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on August 22, 2020August 14, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Pronghorn Herd Moving Along

As the late summer / early fall progresses into full brown season. I still see just a stripe of green (ish) across the middle of this large field of stunted grown grass.

The Pronghorn Herd traversing the grassy field were in a moderate hurry. I find that as a group, they are synergistically more jumpy than a single animal. Even individual mothers with fawns are easier to approach than a herd. If just ONE of the animals doesn’t like what they see… One jumps and all go. Them deciding which is might as well be random. I’m assuming the presence of my truck traveling down the gravel road 400 yards out spooked them. They were running parallel to me, not the other direction. They eventually race to cross the road in front of me as I had to stop to catch this. 4 wheel disk breaks on 35 inch tires stop pretty quickly but the truck takes a few seconds to dampen down the rock back from the stop.

As soon as the truck slowed down, the Pronghorn must have perceived a sign of weakness. They instantly turned to run in front of my truck. I’m thinking they were just showing off. Nothing like being the fastest animal in North America. I’ve clocked them at close to 50 before. Hard to tell exactly. I’m sure someone got one on a radar gun. The official record is 61mph. A cheetah can max out at 80. Good things there are no cheetah’s left in North America after the Megafauna die off after the last ice age. Climate changes in the past…

Speaking of weather: (Like that segue??)😜 Locally, the warmest June or July in a long time. Very dry as well with only .6 inches of rain in June. A lot of the country is a tinderbox as those in California know all too well. Last summer was wet and lush through late August. Wyotana Bi-Polar climate…. Remember that ALL climate is local. The earth has no climate. It has all climates. Multiple personalities as it were….🤔

Title: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Pronghorn Herd Moving Along

Posted on June 23, 2020June 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Proof Pronghorn Levitate

This young female Pronghorn caught in the act clearly levitating above the county road. No wonder they are the fastest land animal in North America. They have been “clocked” at 61 miles per hour I’ve heard. I’ve seen them run next to me around 50 mph over uneven ground. Running smoother over than that my rig on the maintained county gravel road. Here I managed to catch her actually crossing that road in front of my rig.

Anticipating well known animal behavior is not rocket science. Pronghorn have often been seen having the option to run away from your truck back into the “fields” but run in front of your vehicle instead. Here I “banked” on that activity (clearly today “banked” doesn’t have the value it used to but I digress). Sure enough, I stop to aim the camera, spin the dials while the trucks suspension dampens down….4,3,2,1 click.

Photographic Musings: Photography is all about balancing the amount of light coming into your camera.

Close to the camera, High Speed Animals Running laterally to you are necessary to follow/ track. So you must be free handed typically. That is a learned skill. Keeping the critter in your eyepiece with a 2 foot long lens is like looking through a 2 foot long pipe. I can’t teach you that, but I can tell you that if you don’t have a lot of shutter speed, your going to get a blur as a 50mph thing blows past. I would hope you have 1/2000ths of a second or shorter exposures to freeze it in space and time.. That’s one of three settings in manual mode to get this kind of image.

Second setting is F-stop, It’s always better to have lots of light with high speed work. Lower F-stop # =more light but it thins your “depth of focus field” (google that) You note the only thing in focus in the Pronghorn. A low F-stop number gives me more light to account/balance the light I lost

ISO, camera sensitivity… Final adjustment that you use to balance to actually get the right amount of light to get the exposure you desire. More ISO means more visual noise and grain on the image. Lower numbers like 100 give you the best grain but take away light from your camera. Higher numbers make it so the camera digitally enhances the light that does make it through the aperture (F-stop) and the short exposure time. A three way teeter totter of light.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Proof Pronghorn Levitate

Posted on April 30, 2020April 24, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Whitetail Sprinting All Out

This White Tail Deer doe was literally moving out. Running with a small group racing across the road in front of my truck. Caught here just as she came over the road hump to run into the compression of the ditch. The physics of this moment caused my eyes to widen. I’d be plowing into the far bank of the ditch…. Not this little gal…

Seeing the situation develop ahead of time, I managed to pull a 45 degree turn in the road while stopping. This gave my lens a clear field of view to the group. Having only a few seconds, I’m known to have cameras pre-set up for the lighting of the moment. This was very early in the morning just a few minutes after the sun cleared the high ridge over my right shoulder.

Whitetail turn this wonderful light tan color in the spring. The shedding of their winter fur is mostly over and a silky look is the rule for healthy animals. I really don’t see a lot of Whitetail up here. I seldom can get close to them as they are WAY spookier than Mule Deer. I’ve heard that when Whitetail move into an area, the Mule Deer move out. I see the Whitetail leave each winter migrating to lower climates in the drainage. The Mule Deer overwinter in this high ridge grass prairie having the whole ranch to themselves for 7 months of the year.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Whitetail Sprinting All Out

Posted on March 26, 2020December 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Grassy Bedded Buck Pronghorn

Ever had to crawl up to get a shot? I’m too old for that stuff anymore lolol. It’s pretty hard to get a big buck laying down on the job of protecting his girls. Stealth is a slow pace but a long lens sure helps a bit unless your carrying it….

The most most recent continental Ice sheet (5 glaciations in the last 500,000 years) stopped it’s advance about 20 miles up into Montana from my perspective here on the Bliss DInosaur Ranch. There were LOTS of critters hanging out below the glaciers. The Pleistocene Epoch is typically defined as the time period that began about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago. Paleontologist recognize this age as a time of geologically rapid Glaciations followed by warmer periods in between. A vast and diverse “Mega-fauna” was present within those variable ecosystems.

About 11,700 years ago, things started warming up for the 5th time in a half a million years. (Warm periods between the ice sheet advances). The earth’s various climates (the earth has NO climate, it has ALL climates) were “Changing” every 100,000 years or so. The Term “Cycle” is thrown about loosely these days. I use it here in that I’m glad it’s warm because living here with an ice sheet 20 miles to our north….Might have experienced some “Climate Change” back then. Sort of like this winter so far….

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Grassy Bedded Buck Pronghorn

Posted on March 18, 2020March 11, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Deer Marching Two by Two

Satire:

This was an attempt to get together a backcountry soccer game but there was no crowds in the cheap seat, or the stadium for that fact but me.

Upon arriving at the venue, hearing that it’s not good to be in groups of more than 5. This of course because of the Corona Virus, the Antelope ran away. The intimidating behavior /show of force of the deer herd of course was obvious. It demonstrated the military bearing of the group. Intimidation won the day here. The Pronghorn were awarded the loss. The Deer team, awarded the win for the opposing teams failure to take the field.

Back to my normal programing

Late summer 2019 when the Pronghorn were still around. They migrate about 30 miles to the south every winter and currently are absent as this posts. I will see them within the month I would think. It depends on how late the big spring snows are. The deer winter over hanging out somewhere near the water holes we keep open for them.

There are actually two parallel trails that the deer are walking on. I point out was pure coincidence for the alignment. They continued on up the hill quite a ways like this. I just took photos and tried to keep my jaw out of the way. I’ve never seen deer make a formation before lolol.

3×2 aspect to 3 feet.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Deer Marching Two by Two

Posted on March 11, 2020March 4, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Pronghorn Horn Confusion

This from early spring 2019. The grass is growing, the hair is shedding off this Young Pronghorn Buck. They shed in clumps giving them a haggard / mange look. He’s perfectly healthy for a young un…But WHAT is going on with his horns… You have to look very carefully lolol. These guys will be appearing here on ranch within weeks of this Mid-March Post.

Pronghorn Spring Migration:

The Pronghorn are migrating shortly but I’m not seeing them up here just yet as we have snow cover high. Moving through here from the south heading through up to Montana. They are following ancient migration routes that the cowboys used to move cattle in the late 1800’s from Miles City Montana down to Newcastle Wyoming. The local version of the “Texas Trail” runs right through the western side of our ranch. Fences are little obstacle to these animals which play the “limbo game” effortlessly. They usually do go under but I do have a few photos of Pronghorn going over fences.

I figure MOST of those animals that lived on ranch all last summer are mostly 10 -20 miles south. They are working their way to the ThunderBasin National Grasslands where they have moving water (not frozen) and good feed for the winter. There are only a few roads through a pretty big piece of remote real estate between the Powder River Basin and the Wyoming Black Hills. Many Hundreds of square miles for herds to congregate in. Many ranchers maintain water stock tanks during the winter. This helps more on the margins but water is a rare thing up here when it’s been 30 below for a week.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Pronghorn Horn Confusion

Posted on March 9, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Deer Watching Pronghorn Crossing

Deer Watching Pronghorn Crossing (Headline in any rural newspaper as it’s pretty quiet up here)

With several things going on in this mid-summer capture, you might focus on the Pronghorn diving under the three wire fence. The highlight on which are as bright as I’ve seen lol. It was just the perfect angle. I’m parked about 300 yards down the road. The mother and two fawns were in a hurry to leave my proximity as I just had come to a stop. Pronghorn’s tend to move when you stop. Changes in motion trigger them to move in response as I see it. If your still all the time or moving all the time, your less likely to spook them. Vehicle photography of Pronghorn is much easier than on foot lolol. These American native long distance relative of the giraffe does not appreciate the human form (maybe it’s just me”…😜)

So… Pronghorn almost always go under fences. I read once where they can jump 15 feet high. (I have not see this). I have however seen them go 6 feet. I have less than 10 images of Pronghorn Jumping Fences. I have many more of them going under fences. 📸

This is however, the ONLY image I have of a doe deer “Watching the Technique” clearly displayed here used by countless generations of Pronghorn. Deer of course tend to jump fences.

I can’t tell you how much I want summer back. As I post this midwinter, there is either mud or ice in the backcountry. Iced / melted then frozen snow drifts are really bumpy. Mud is a problem this time of yearI try not to exacerbate by making ruts with my Raptor.

Location: near the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Deer Watching Pronghorn Crossing

Posted on March 9, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Pronghorn Fawns Incoming Fast

I’ve taken a lot of Pronghorn Images. These are all 2 or 3 month old fawns running at and eventually run right by me. They didn’t care at all about my Jeep Grand Cherokee running with stinky noisy me in it. I’m just another grazing animal to the wild things up here. At some point last summer they have seen my particular rig drive by so many times, they just don’t care about it. It’s obviously not a threat. With the Pronghorn, I have to start fresh each spring as they may or may not be the same animals on my ground. I couldn’t tell without some markings to distinguish them and there are too many to keep track of lol.

Just prior to this image, I was watching/photographing a family group up the hill these guys are screaming down. The adults really didn’t scatter but something spooked these hoodlums. I think they just decided to go for a run as their species is prone to do. To this day, this timeline (which has numerous good photos) are the only images I have of these magnificent animals running at me.

There were a couple more fawns in this group that are out of frame. This was a pretty good sized nursery with 7 fawns it appeared. There were not 5 adults. Someone was off or several had twins. This is the second of two finished images from that encounter. This was mid-summer this year 2019.

2×3 feet at full resolution.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. *Wyotana)

Title: Pronghorn Fawns Incoming Fast

Posted on January 21, 2020January 15, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Pronghorns Crossing the Road

Why do the Pronghorns Cross the Road? Well because they are Pronghorn lolol. Wyoming is home to about 1/2 of the worlds Pronghorn. Most of them cross the road in front of you when ever they have to go out of their way to do so. 😜🤔

I thought this vibrant green grass from the month of May. May is officially the end of the average last frost in this area. Well this year we had Lilacs blooming on the 4th of July. Every season was a month late. Except the fact that fall was on a tuesday this year. The next day there was 4 inches of snow everywhere and that was October 1st. We really didn’t have an “Indian Summer” this last fall. Now in Mid-Winter I’m enjoying looking at some of the artsy things I did in the spring.

This image was not so much about the Pronghorn but more about the colors/contrast of the red gravel against the grass. Both textures and colors combine for the stage of a classic Wyotana Scene. Drive the backroad gravel on open range sometime. (Get off the highway). You WILL have pronghorn try to beat your car to cross the road in front of you.

Having said that, over two decades living 70 miles from town, we have unfortunately hit/been hit by some wild animals driving our cars. In 20 years, we are 13 deer, 2 Pronghorn, 1 coyote and one cow. Total damage to vehicles, 1 side mirror, one shock steering stabilizer and a broken bolt on a license plate bracket. Good Bumpers 😀

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch,Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Pronghorns Crossing the Road

Posted on January 20, 2020January 14, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Pronghorn Pulling Some G’s

The North American Pronghorn:

Pronghorn are the Fasted Land Animal in North America. Nothing else even comes close. They developed these skills/anatomy as a result of learning to avoid predation. It seems there used to be some pretty fast Lions, tigers and other cats living in these hills. Those predators were obviously prolific during the last Ice Ace and before here in the Wyoming/Montana borderlands. The most most recent continental Ice sheet (5 glaciations in the last 500,000 years) stopped it’s advance about 20 miles up into Montana from my perspective here on the Bliss DInosaur Ranch. There were LOTS of critters hanging out below the glaciers.

This was captured back in late August when there was some tussling within the local herd. (see how green in August !)

Currently in Mid-winter, Pronghorn have all migrated 20 miles to the south. The Thunderbasin National Grasslands consists of a huge area of unpopulated ground. Thousands of Pronghorn head there in the winter. I drove through there about a week before this posts. I do have some good Pronghorn BIG herd photos from in the grasslands to finish. . My turn around time from taking a photo, then getting it posted is slightly over a week. That is unless I push one into the “line” ahead of others. It’s all telephoto work down in the grasslands. Nothing is close usually and there is only one road through the area that I’ve ever traveled. Vehicular traffic is limited to the main road. Forbidden on the grasslands, big fines for going off road. . The national reserve has hundreds of square miles incorporated.

Pretty much the only large creatures to winter over up here on the remote borderland ridges, are cattle and mule deer. The WhiteTail move down to more reliable water even though we supply it. They tend to be in the valleys for the season not up here.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Pronghorn Pulling Some G’s

Posted on December 18, 2019December 12, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Hinds Heading Hillside

If you were to go out and try to shoot a photograph of migrating pronghorns… There is a 90 percent chance you will see the north end of a southbound Pronghorn if you try. This mixed group of guys and gals that just crossed the county road in front of my vehicle. There were hundreds in the string and I have several images from the front and crossing the red county road. None of the group jumped the fence line they were crossing. All to an animal waited patently on the one in front going UNDER the fence. I watched about 100 cross the road one animal or two at a time.

These guys were all walking away on their long traveled route. Taken down in the ThunderBasin National Grasslands from the country road. All vehicular traffic remains banned from the Grasslands. This reserve covers hundreds of square miles. This is literally part of America’s Serengeti. There are several thousand pronghorn that move down there for the winter. . I don’t know the official census but I’m betting those numbers easily. Just a few oil wells and stock tanks dot the landscape. An occasional stock tank flows year round and there are some geothermal waters that they drink in deep winter.

This large area of no human intrusion lessens the stress on the Pronghorn. The winter is bad enough with out large herds running away from humans. Every calorie is important.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Pronghorn Hinds Heading Hillside

Posted on December 14, 2019December 7, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Deer 13 Pronghorn 4

Satire: There was going to be a pickup base ball game but the Pronghorn couldn’t put enough players on the field. I would have enjoyed the play by play. Now if 4 of the deer played on the Pronghorn team, there would still be one odd man out. The someone asked who had the ball and bat and no one remembered to bring it. Go figure!

That ‘s the problem with ungulate sports. They are as a group focused on food an danger. Anything else is transitory . You will also note that the Whitetail squad also was a no show entirely. They will probably show up with their coach “Sneaky Pete” the Windmill. I have no control over their actions. 😜

Back to my “normal” programming.

I don’t see close encounters of multiple species, that I can capture on one frame, of ungulates out in the backcountry. Even so, this is the Serengeti of North America up in this portion of Wyoming/Montana. The major national grassland 20 miles from here to the south puts us on a migration route with many hundreds of pronghorn passing through each late fall/early spring. The Deer herd up in the late fall just after rut through mid spring. Then they break up into smaller groups and finally does with fawns. Only to regroup again later in the year. It’s all a cycle over and over again. I’ve watched this numerous times over the years… Rinse and Repeat.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Deer 13 Pronghorn 4

Posted on November 18, 2019November 18, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Fawns Running at Me

I’ve taken a lot of Pronghorn Images. These are all 2 or 3 month old fawns running at and eventually run right by me. They didn’t care at all about my Jeep Grand Cherokee running with stinky noisy me in it. I’m just another grazing animal to the wild things up here. At some point in the summer they have seen my particular rig drive by so many times, they just don’t care about it. It’s obviously not a threat. With the Pronghorn, I have to start fresh each spring as they may or may not be the same animals on my ground. I couldn’t tell without some markings to distinguish them and there are too many to keep track of lol.

There were a couple more fawns in this group that are out of frame. This was a pretty good sized nursery with 7 fawns it appeared. There were not 5 adults. Someone was off or several had twins. I have more of these that will gradually get finished this winter. This was mid-summer this year 2019.

2×3 feet at full resolution.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Pronghorn Fawns Running at Me

Posted on November 7, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire

Game Trail Camera capture: Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire

I love Pronghorns color in this light. The color of their hide is very close here to the real color they sport mid day. Maybe just a TAD dark but very close. This instead of the “Golden Hour” color of much darker brown. I see a host of images of these guys much darker than I’ve ever seen them in the wild. Title: “Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire”

Running under a barbed wire is risky but moving about 20 mph as he’s doing it…. wow. These guys move through those gaps with hardly loosing any speed. I’ve seen a dozen Pronghorn moving under barbed wire in a few seconds. They don’t mess around when they feel like it’s “time to go”. I suspect someone sounds a subtle alarm and they are “outta here”. Fastest land animal in North America, they have their share of scratches along their back too. I sometimes have image after image like this on a camera as the herds move through. The automatic cameras react to the movement and capture the action.

I’ve seen Pronghorn go OVER fences before but it’s not a common occurrence. Some fen

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Posted on October 29, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns

This Pronghorn Doe with the Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns is in Heat and Every Male in the Group of about 30 others she is with knows it all too well. The rut was in full “swing” (as it were) and the boys never gave her much rest. This is what they call an out of breath Pronghorn which is not something you usually see. She is panting hard, Blue tongue to the wind. She had run miles in a circle over the last 30 minutes I had them under my auspices.

I particularly like her eyebrow horns. Sort of a built in sun shade and permanent block to vision I would think . At any rate, the gal got all the guys attention she wanted.

Now she could have run away from the group and out of the range of the guys but noooooooo. She kept coming back just to get run around again and again. Play hard to get AND playing hard lolol.

The whole group were putting on quite a show for me that golden light colorcasted morning just after the sunrise. That light always makes them look darker than they are during the overhead sunny day where they go light tan.

Photographers notes: Remember that I try really hard to be a photorealist that leaves natural color casts in photographs. As such, I like Pronghorn lighter tan than this scene portrays them as but this was the actual scene.when I took the photo in my memory. I typically end up reducing colorcasts in twilight or early golden hour within the world of the the digital darkroom in which I live in these days. . This is something I do WAY more than “enhance” colors which really doesn’t work with the way I expose photos. I seldom have to do anything to highlight colors. It’s the shadows I really work with. Always expose your highlights properly and bring out the shadows in some good editing program (Lightroom/Photoshop). Overexposed highlights are destroyed and detail within cannot be recovered.

. Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns

Posted on October 14, 2019October 6, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Prancing

The Prancing Pronghorn is actually running pretty much all out and it totally out of breath as 6 of the Bucks in her group know very well she is in heat. The Rut is in full progress…. I point out her horns which make a permanent visual impairment for her.

The Bucks are all pressuring her, she could just keep running and get away from the group but she keeps coming back and then has to run some more lolol.
She was panting hard and I only watched her for about an hour doing this. These distant relatives of the Giraffe are the fasted animal on land in North America by far. I’m thinking she was going around 30mph for this one, she’d turn sharply to avoid males chasing here to evade and elude. Mud was flying.

Taken a week ago.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 13, 2019October 5, 2019 by Bliss

A Chase and Evasion During the Pronghorn Rut

Here’s a frozen motion shot of A Chase and Evasion During the Pronghorn Rut a week ago (from this post). The rear male actually wasn’t involved in this chase/evasion. The other three were just running past him in the slow lane… The three in the front were traveling about 50 mph (all out in other words) and the MUD WAS FLYING on the corners. This wasn’t running away from me, they didn’t care I was there…this was running away from the middle buck in the photo. Trying to get the attention of the gal between them. Fighting/rutting for the doe…. Flat out hauling white furry A** /cornering too….

Photographers notes: 1/2000th second F13, ISO 1000, 1200mm(fast) lens. About 200 yards out. Not a crop 🙂 Full Morning sun..

Tracking these guys with a 2 foot long, 13 pound camera/lens setup out of your jeep window is a challenge lol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch,

Posted on September 12, 2019September 11, 2019 by Bliss

Fawn Running Up a Steep Hill

Caught just as he bolted up that steep hill, this fawn paused, then started running. Click, Click every 2 seconds…
The particular Browning Trail Camera takes very nice photos. It gives me an initial 20 meg image which is better than most cell phones.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on September 10, 2019September 9, 2019 by Bliss

Whitetail Fawn Walking in the Wash

This Whitetail Deer Fawn was walking right across the view of a very high quality trail camera down in a deep wash here on ranch. IT’s one of the finest images I’ve ever gotten out of a Game Trail Camera and I’ve seen some pretty good ones..

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.