Tule Elk, locking horns

kdog

In an effort to find clear skies to shoot the eclipse early Saturday, I found myself almost two hours from home with my biggest lens in the car at daybreak. And thus it was a perfect time to look for tule elk at San Luis NWR in CA's central valley.

At one time there were over 500,000 tule elk in CA and practically driven to extinction. Today they are back up to just 4,000 elk.

1 - Found one


2 - Found a couple more looking quite social


3 - Suddenly there seems to be some aggressive posturing


4 - The match begins with an audible "clack" that can be heard from a long distance


5


6


7 - The match ends abruptly and it's back to being buddies like nothing ever happened


8 - Suddenly a fresh round of provocation ensues.


The end.

Thanks for looking,
-joel

DsrtVW

Nice shots Joel. Nice of them to be close enough to get some shots and action to boot. Looks a bit frosty that morning.

kdog

DsrtVW wrote: »

Nice shots Joel. Nice of them to be close enough to get some shots and action to boot. Looks a bit frosty that morning.

Howdy, Chris. It was you of course who clued me into the San Luis NWR, so thanks for that.

Yes it was a bit frosty indeed. BTW, I swung by the Merced NWR as well, and the Sand Hills are all gone.

AFBlue

Fantastic shots! From your description, sounds like this might fit in the luck-beats-brains (planning) file. (Looking for eclipse; found elk modeling/posing for you.)

Jerry

Dennis Kaczor

Fantastic series Joel, love the first image and I really like the action images as well.

PGM

Joel, I love this series! You got some great shots and managed to be in just the right spot to capture the action. You got great angles on those clashing of antlers. I was trying to pick the ones I like best, and concluded that I just plain like them all. I do love #7, I guess for the symmetry of both heads and eyes in focus, and both sets of antlers or horns or whatever they are all visible, and almost looking like one set. Congratulations! Merry Christmas, Pam

pmaxwell

I really like them all, especially the PBBBBTTTT raspberry in the last one.

D90mark

Very nice set, I really like that last one. I am sure that got the adrenaline flowing.

kdog

Thanks for the comments, everybody! It was really a neat thing to observe. I'm glad you liked the shots.

Sexy6Chick

Joel this is a great series of shots!

kdog

Thanks, Natalie!

I've processed two more shots that compliment the series I think.

Tres Amigos


Dos

carlogalliani

great set and very nice shots

PGM

They sure do compliment the series! Merry Christmas! Pam

zoomer

Great way to spend a morning.
Appears to be a slight color cast in the first series, light blue maybe. And could use a smidge of black point maybe.
The second group look good color wise and looks like you upped your contrast a smidge.....of course this monitor is crap so I could be wrong .
5 is my favorite of the set, nice action, beautiful animals.

kdog

Thanks, Carlo, Pam and Mike.

Mike, you wouldn't believe how much black point adjustment were in these shots. Like almost 100%. Despite what it looks like, the animals were pretty far off. These were shot at 700mm on a crop-body. Plus it was foggy and flat light. The natural lighting was very cool. I used a CS auto-color on them and it probably exaggerated the effect but I liked it. I'm probably weird that way (see the moniker above my avatar). So maybe a little warmer may have been a better call. I always appreciate your input on processing -- you have a really good eye, my man.

Just for fun, here's a shot straight out of the camera with no correction so you can see what I was up against.

DsrtVW

kdog wrote: »

Howdy, Chris. It was you of course who clued me into the San Luis NWR, so thanks for that.

Yes it was a bit frosty indeed. BTW, I swung by the Merced NWR as well, and the Sand Hills are all gone.

What time did you go by Merced, the Sandhills could have just been out feeding. I noticed there that early morning or late sunset is best when they are going out or coming in to roost.

kdog

DsrtVW wrote: »

What time did you go by Merced, the Sandhills could have just been out feeding. I noticed there that early morning or late sunset is best when they are going out or coming in to roost.

Mid-day. Maybe that explains it. Thanks.

ian408

Very nice. Almost looks like they're walking in snow.

Harryb

Excellent Joel and really good processing of the images.

pmaxwell

Kdog, Thanks for posting the pre processed image. I'd love to see more images posted with both before and after processing. I would have assumed the originals were SOOC. I see I have a lot to learn about processing.

Dogdots

Wonderful series -- really enjoyed looking at these. Loved the gesture in the last photo

Sexy6Chick

kdog wrote: »

Dos

Love this one!

Colorado CJ

Nice series! The foggy atmosphere really adds something to these photos.

These elk look a little different than the ones I'm used to here in Colorado, I see that Tule Elk are a subspecies. Beautiful animals non the less!

PGM

Joel, I also appreciate your posting the original image. I never would have guessed it was so far off the final product. You did a GREAT job! Merry Christmas, Pam