Daaammmnnn Nature, You Scary

I recently took a quick trip up to the Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone NP for a few days. Since I have been there before, I was using this trip to get more wildlife photography. When I went in June with my friends we saw every type of wildlife; bears, elk, moose, and buffalo! However, this time only the buffalo and elk came out to play.

As a small farm town kid, all I saw growing up was White Tail Deer. I know that Elk and White Tails come from the same deer family. However, I wasn't ready for the sheer size of these animals. The dream for hunters in Ohio is a 10 point buck. If I was out for an Elk, I'm all about the width of the rack!! When you see an Elk that has almost a 36" gap in its antlers...WOW, that's an animal! I only saw a handful of Elk on this trip. Here are a few of the shots I was able to get!

Elk are large and beautiful animals, however, they don't lay a finger on the Buffalo! If you were coming from a different place and have no knowledge of Buffalo. I can totally see, how you would see them as docile and friendly creatures; they look like giant cows. Buffalo to me are giant, beautiful, powerful animals. When I went with my friends in June, we had an amazing experience of a Buffalo walking less than 5ft from my car. I drive a Subaru Impreza and the Buffalo dwarfed my car! This time around I had multiple close encounters with Buffalo, except this time I wasn't in the comfortable confines of my car. Below is a slideshow of all the Buffalo I took pictures of. As you can see, I waaass fairly close on more than 2 occasions. I do have a 70-300mm lens, but a lot of these were shot at >200mm. I thankfully never had one charge me! They were also nice enough to smile and give me a pose!

I love living within driving distance to the Tetons and Yellowstone. They're both truly a magical place in our country! I highly recommend that everyone visit at least once in their life!