Tuesday, September 24

My sister, Nancy, messaged me on Monday evening, saying, “I know this is late notice, but would you be interested in going to see the elk tomorrow?” Within minutes it was arranged, because it suited us – and we were interested. 🙂

We left our house about 12:30 pm for the 3-4 hour hour drive to Elk County. Part way there, the guys noticed this interesting illustration on the back of a big rig.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of Marlin and Nancy when we stopped at the Snow Shoe Auto Truck Plaza, Snow Shoe, PA, for a middle of the afternoon meal. We were having such a good time that I didn’t think about taking my camera inside the restaurant.

This was our first sighting of an elk – which was mostly a backside view.

We got a glimpse of his large antlers a time or two before he entered the woods – following a female. It is the rut – the reason many people go to Elk County to see them this time of year. The elk are always there, but during the rut (mating season) the male are busy trying to gather a harem and keep them away from the other males.

These two males were grazing in a nearby campground.

We saw several more on the way to the Visitors Center, where you are almost sure to see them in the fields and meadows.

We also saw quite a few deer throughout the evening – probably about two dozen.

We saw a nice male as we drove into the visitors center, but could not get a photo. When we got to the viewing areas at the visitors center, we could hear some males bugling, but only saw a few females.

There were a lot of people there, so there was some excitement when we saw this huge male walk out of the woods – already bugling. Bugling intimidates smaller males and attract the females.

Within minutes he was “gathering” females into a group.

The females appeared to ignore him and some tried to walk away. He always brought them back to the herd.

He continued to bugle and a few other males responded but never came into his area of the field. He must have been intimidating.

The most fun of the evening was watching him trying to keep the female on the left with the herd. She kept moving away from him.

We kept a record and figure we saw about forty elk.

Sometime I would like to take the wagon ride through the meadow and get much closer to the elk. That must be reserved at least 24 hours in advance and usually runs only on weekends. On this particular Tuesday evening the ride was done for a busload of people who made special arrangements.