Seeing Red

 Today's post is a very photo intensive piece about my recent three day trip to Wyoming's Red Desert. A fellow photographer and I had talked about doing a short camping trip in the area with the goal of getting some unique landscape shots. What we didn't count on was the heavy smoke from the massive wild fires in the Pacific Northwest that cast a thick haze over everything.

Lucky for us we ended up seeing quite a bit of wildlife so the trip was not a photographic loss, by any means. And I still got a few landscape shots - they were just not the ones I thought I would get!

 We started our trip by heading south and driving into the desert not far from Eden. We picked a camping spot with a great view of Boar's Tusk and hoped the haze would clear by morning. It didn't. The smoke in the air did make for a red sunrise over Killpecker Sand Dunes as you can see in the shot below.

 We spent the second day driving a lot of miles over dirt roads to get to our destination of Honeycomb Buttes. Along the way we saw an amazing variety of wildlife which you will see in the photos following the landscapes. The first two shots of Honeycomb are early morning looking north.

 By the third day the haze had cleared a little bit compared to the previous day so the closer landscapes were actually sharp with the smoke clouding up the more distant landmarks.

 Prairie dogs were in abundant supply just about everywhere we went and seemed curious about our presence.

 The highlight of the trip for me was the chance to see numerous members of the rare and unusual Red Desert non-migratory elk herd. They actually have a slightly different look from the animals I am used to seeing in Yellowstone and they are much warier of humans. A large group serenaded us for some time that evening as we settled in our tents. They were a long ways away and out of sight but they were extremely vocal!

 Desert cottontails were also active throughout the areas we visited.

Another treat was the chance to see several herds of wild horses. Like the elk, these animals were much more cautious toward humans than the ones I have seen in this area.

 We saw several small groups with foals.

 The biggest group we saw consisted of about a dozen horses - ten mares and foals and two stallions. As soon as we stopped the truck, still some distance away, the stallions rounded up the mares and drove them even further back from the road. We thought that was it but then the stallions turned and began running straight at us. The message was pretty clear - they didn't want us there. We immediately backed off toward the truck and they stopped some distance away but they had made their point!

 Another unexpected and thrilling sighting was of this rare mountain plover, below. She looks as if she is standing up for an ovation and she certainly deserved it. Never have I seen a bird so convincingly mimic a broken wing. If we hadn't spotted her running around before she went into her "poor me" act, it would have been impossible to believe she wasn't injured.

The last shot is of a pair of young antelope twins with their mother. The Red Desert hosts the largest migratory herd of pronghorn in the US.

All in all I would call it a successful trip!