A Fantastic Show

They were ready for a show.....we should have known something neat was going to happen.

We took our annual trip up to Rocky Mountain National Park to watch the elk bugle. I packed us a picnic for dinner. When we arrived we saw several cows (female elk) lying down in a field. There wasn't much activity. No bulls in sight to stir things up. As we sat and ate our sandwiches we kept hearing bugling in the distance. We decided to pack up and drive towards the sounds we were hearing. It turned out we were very fortunate to have moved. Right when we pulled up on the side of the road we saw a bull elk with a sizable rack trying to round up his harem as he chased off a younger bull. He succeeded in taking away five cows from a much younger bull. This was pretty exciting to see....both of the bulls displayed their power as they bugled in the midst of their fight/struggle to keep/take the bulls. We were thrilled to see this and thought about leaving to head home. When all of a sudden a huge herd of cows (25+) entered the scene from the woods as they were pushed into the same area as the small and medium sized bulls -- by an even larger bull. The smaller bull ran far away never to be seen again and the medium-sized bull and his five cows moved out of the area quickly. But the medium-sized bull with five cows wasn't convinced that this contest was over. He came back and the two bulls actually ran at each other and locked horns. Wow! We had been standing outside the car to get a better look. At this point we grabbed the kids and moved to a more comfortable and safe distance. The medium-sized bull with only five cows was able to able to gather up one more cow as a result of his bravery. But he didn't come back again. The big bull elk stood and gloated for a while -- putting on a fantastic show of bugling -- what the throngs of people come to see each year at this time, but many are not as lucky as we were this night. This was an impressionable experience for all of us -- especially the kids. They talked about it the whole way back to Ft. Collins and for the next few days.