Photographing these bighorn sheep at sunrise in Waterton Canyon was a bit of a surprise. Kevin texted to say he had come down with the flu and the usual Monday photo trip was cancelled. In the meantime however, I got a call that a friend in Woodland Park needed a ride in the afternoon. Since that would put me almost halfway to Waterton, I decided to head on up to Littleton in the morning and see if I could spot a few bighorns in the canyon.
The First Sighting
About two miles into my mountain bike ride up the canyon, I spotted a crowd of big white lenses gathering. Of course I knew that was the sign that the bighorns had been spotted. Sure enough, there were a trio of rams jostling each other and eating the grass along the banks of the South Platte.
The animals were plenty close enough that my 100-400mm lens was sufficient without the use of a teleconverter. I was happy to have the extra stop of light and extra background blur that aperture f/5.6 would provide. Using the teleconverter would force me to use f/8, which isn’t optimal for portraiture.
I selected Manual on the dial and chose a 1/1000th of a second coupled with f/5.6 while using auto ISO to assure a good exposure. The animals lazily made their way upstream, allowing plenty of time for photography.
I was fortunate to capture some of the most beautiful ram portraits of my career in that time! I took a ride upstream to the dam in hopes of spotting eagles or osprey, with no luck. There were a few ewes kicking rocks onto the road on my way back down, but they were too far away for good images.
How Do I Get the Shots
If you would like to learn more about how and where I get these wildlife images, please consider purchasing one of my books! Wildlife Photography in the Rockies and Storm Warning are both full of tips and tricks that will help you get amazing pictures! Check my book page to view all my published material!
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