Hanging out…

Look out for bison on the road, I was warned before an epic road trip in Canada, they’ll do huge damage to a car and you might not walk away if you hit one.

Driving on Aussie regional and remote roads a lot, I’m used to looking out for animals wandering - or hopping onto the roads. So I kept my eyes peeled…. and looked… and looked. I saw plenty of signs warning of bison wandering onto the road, but didn’t see a single one.
I saw a gray wolf, and a silver wolf…. but no bears, no bison. Nada.

Keen to see bison at the very least and maybe a bear or two, we headed to Elk Island Nature Reserve just outside of Edmonton. Surely we’d find plenty there.

Having being given all the warnings about how close - or how far - to stay back from them, I was ready with a zoom lens to hopefully get one or two good shots at least.

We found a herd pretty easily and quickly, peacefully grazing in front of a lake under the beautiful late afternoon sun.

Jumping out of the car quickly to get some shots, I moved to isolate one big guy from the rest of the herd, popping my tripod up to stabilise the hefty lens.

Taking the camera back in hand I moved away and crouched to get a few different shots.

Wrong move.

The big guy let me get a couple of shots before he decided to casually wander towards me, between me and my tripod. The younger ones in the herd followed him over.

Given the totally appropriately strict rules about being in proximity to the bison, I had no choice but to get back in the car and reverse up a fair way, leaving my tripod where it stood, hanging out with the bison.

“Well that’s it’, Mum said, ‘you’ll have to come back and get that later when they’ve gone’.

“Like hell”, I replied, “Im not leaving that there, it will be long gone before we get back”.

So we sat and we watched… and marvelled at these creatures casually roaming the land as they’ve done for hundreds of years, and will hopefully continue to do for hundreds more.