2409_1036 Pronghorn Rut
The ever-hopeful Pronghorn buck has his eye on the doe - and his tongue is visible, too, if you look closely - but she's not interested. They look like a family group, but ungulates do not function that way. Herd animals belong to the herd, not family units, although the females do guard their young, as this doe is doing here.
Aside from a few very brief stare-downs, this buck generally left the fawn in peace as he followed the doe through a prairie dog town. No other pronghorn were present. I duck-walked and then crawled under sagebrush cover to get close enough for this shot, and the low POV allowed me to include the background foothills and give a sense of the vastness and wide open spaces of their habitat.
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2024 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
2409_1036 Pronghorn Rut
The ever-hopeful Pronghorn buck has his eye on the doe - and his tongue is visible, too, if you look closely - but she's not interested. They look like a family group, but ungulates do not function that way. Herd animals belong to the herd, not family units, although the females do guard their young, as this doe is doing here.
Aside from a few very brief stare-downs, this buck generally left the fawn in peace as he followed the doe through a prairie dog town. No other pronghorn were present. I duck-walked and then crawled under sagebrush cover to get close enough for this shot, and the low POV allowed me to include the background foothills and give a sense of the vastness and wide open spaces of their habitat.
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2024 James R. Page - all rights reserved.