Mission Bighorn

The mission once again was to find and photograph the bighorn sheep in Waterton Canyon. However upon arrival it appeared that a rain out was a distinct possibility 🙁 The wind was blowing, the air was chilly and there was a steady light rain falling. Undaunted, we began our trek up the canyon hoping for more light and a break in the precipitation.

Eventually the weather gods smiled upon us and although not completely sunny, we did have some nice light and a break in the rain for an hour or so. But no bighorns… we asked several mountain bikers and a fisherman if they had seen any and each responded with a discouraging negative. But fortune smiled upon us again… just as we were about to give up a lady coming back down said she had just seen two bighorns on the hillside just around the bend from our location.

So we had her point them out and we finally spotted a pair of them lying down in the grass near a rocky knoll. Out came the cameras, the 100-400mm lenses, and then even the 1.4x lens extenders! They were probably at least 100 yards away, not easy to see and even more difficult to photograph.

It didn’t take long to capture that scene… two sheep lying down at a range of 100 yards doesn’t make for a lot of creativity!  But just as we were about to give up we spotted another one on top of the rocky knoll… then another, and another! Finally there were at least half a dozen of them playing on the rocks between feeding on the grass and moss, putting on an awesome entertaining show 🙂

We hoped they would come down and get a drink from the Platte River gurgling temptingly behind us, but eventually they grew weary of the games and began to lie down for an afternoon nap. We also were hoping to see the big rams but they weren’t there and soon the dark clouds returned. Our nice soft light soon turned to darkness so we decided to call it a day, but a good day for sure 🙂

The image is my favorite one of the day and is available for purchase as wall art on my website in the bighorn sheep and elk collection. Tons of cool household, apparel, tech items and more are also available with any image from the site!