Elk in late September early October

One of favorite things to do in the fall is to head to the high country when the elk are in rut.  The sounds of the bugles reverberating through the mountains all night long is music to sleep by.  And to have the opportunity to chase and "talk" to them with my selection of calls is as exciting as anything I do with a camera.
This year my scouting over the past few years in Arizona paid off with some great photos.  And additional trip in northern Colorado to the Rocky Mountain National Park paid even bigger dividends.  For 4 1/2 days I hiked and drove through the park in search of elk.  They were not hard to find, especially if you were willing to walk a little.  I did realize it had been a while since I've worked at 9,000 feet though.  I had to delete a few nice video snips I took because of my hard breathing that was recorded when filming the video.
But I've posted a couple on You Tube and you can see one of them just below.
I was also hoping to hit the aspen turning at the same time but I was about a week late.  It still was beautiful and I've posted some of my elk and landscape photos from this fall below.  I hope you enjoy them.  I sure enjoyed taking them.
And in case you are wondering I'm already working on finding good accomodations for taking a photo natural history tour to Estes starting in either 2013 or 2014 at the latest.

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