It’s big horn sheep rutting season in Alberta and the big rams are at their most impressive. Covered in snow and ice, this ram was filling up on minerals, with some of them sticking to his lower lip, before heading up the mountain to battle with the other rams for breeding rights.
Category: Big horn sheep
I have grown accustom to big horn sheep hanging out roadside licking up minerals and eating grass to the point that I have developed the bad habit of not paying them much attention. However, with company in town the sheep were low hanging fruit and they became an instant hit. We stopped for several minutes so they could watch and photograph them. Initially I didn’t lift my camera up but soon some of them were making pretty entertaining faces that I could not longer ignore! They put on a great show for us and left me with the parting shot below. I guess I need to pay them a bit more attention the next time!
Two big horn sheep emerge from the fog to make their way up the aptly named Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana.
A beautiful day in K-country. Big blue skies, amazing mountains and a herd of big horn sheep near the Highwood Pass.
A rock crumbled away under the foot of this lamb, which for most people would have resulted in them plummeting to the ground. The lamb pivoted it’s weight onto the other feet, regaining it’s balance before jumping down the cliff to rejoin the rest of the herd.
I came across a group of bighorn sheep ewes and lambs next to another rock face. While the ewes were feeding the young lambs played around on the cliff. Apparently a fun game for them was to climb a steep section of the rock and then careen down it as fast as possible! It amazing how quickly they can literally run down a mountain side without injuring or killing themselves.
This group of 11 bighorn rams has one of the most beautiful views in all of Jasper. Rolling grass hills surrounded by mountains in the distance and the turquoise waters in the surrounding lakes. I spent an afternoon photographing these big rams along one of the rocky cliffs adjacent to a lake. By late afternoon the rams made there way down the cliff to get a drink. Always on lookout for any danger, two remained up on the cliff and surveyed the landscape while the rest headed down into the valley.
Owen Slater Photography 