This evening as I was returning to the ranch I noticed that one of the motion activated trail camera Jess and I had attached to a tree near the ranch entrance was turned 90 degrees away from its normal orientation. Normally the camera faces our vehicle gate and photographs anything active at the gate. Seeing the fresh bison tracks in the area and how they had demolished a few nearby saplings, I thought I'd take a look at what the camera had captured.
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| The first incident appears to have started yesterday evening. |
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| Initially the camera just gets a face full of bison fur. |
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| All seems quite, but then, a few minutes later, BAM! |
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| Things remain as they were until the next morning when the bison returned. |
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| This time it's a full-out interrogation with what I suspect to be heavy nose breathing. |
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| The camera window remains steamed up for a while, but the fun isn't over. |
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| More jostling and steamy breathing occur... |
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| ...and more... |
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| ...until its finally over. |
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| As the camera begins to settle and the fogging clears, we start to gain a glimpse of what the bison are doing. |
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| The patch of dark ground they are standing on is a small grassy area I had burned the day before in preparation for a much larger prescribed burn I intend to do in the coming spring. Bison and cattle prefer to graze on the new grass that comes up after a spring burning. By burning different portions of a range, called patch-burn grazing, each year you can alternate which areas undergo more grazing stress, which is supposed to be good for the overall health of the pasture. |
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| I find this behavior to be somewhat odd though as the grass hasn't really had a chance to start growing yet. |
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| A later investigation of the area suggests that the bison had may have been eating partially burned dead grass that remained. Perhaps the burned grass tastes good. |