A Day in Elk Country

The day promised to be clear and cool, so before dawn I headed west to spend a day in Pennsylvania’s elk country. On clear cool mornings a dense fog usually forms in the deep stream valleys.

The first elk to be seen were several bulls in a field at the edge of the fog. Fog which swirled in the currents as a rising sun heated the air in the valley. Fog that made photography difficult –

A little later, after the fog had dispersed, a bull pursued several cows –

As the sun rose higher in the sky the elk drifted into the surrounding forest to spend the day. With that it was time to visit distant areas of the elk range to find other photographic opportunities –

That goldenrod was frequented by a host of migrating monarch butterflies –

On the plateau to the south of where those first elk were seen is a wetland in an area that never regenerated to trees following the original logging of the area around 1900.

Scattered in the wetland are white pine stumps remaining from the logging era –

Some of the stumps became the seedbed for birch seedlings that are now interesting trees –

Late in the afternoon it was time for the elk to resume feeding in the fields of abandoned farms. One of those elk was a bull with non-typical antlers –

And then it was time to head for home, down along Bennetts Branch –

As the sun set on a delightful day –