It’s cloudy this morning — warm for the season, but snow is on the way.
Our wildlife have largely abandoned their usual winter patterns this year; the unseasonable warmth, an early legacy of climate change, has confused their internal clocks and the innate rhythms that govern their days and direct their paths.
February is almost here, and we’re approaching the point in winter when non-hibernating wildlife begin to range a little farther afield, looking for new sources of sustenance. If we’re lucky, it means that the elk herd that lives most of the year in the mountains to the east will make their way here. It’s become a sort of annual event for us, the Elk Watch: In some years they don’t come in daylight, but the evidence of their arrival is clear; in others, they show themselves boldly in the afternoon sun.
One showed up early this winter, on December second.
It was a yearling, give or take a few months either direction. If on the younger end of that spectrum, it could be male; the antlers don’t begin to bud until after the seven-month point, usually around ten months or so. Otherwise, it’s a female. On that basis, we’ve since been referring to it as “she.”
The horses, out grazing, alerted us to her presence at the far southeastern fenceline, adjacent to the land of Wings’s late brother Roy. We have to be concerned about predators here — last fall, we twice had evidence of a young bear right in the horses’ pen — and so Wings went to check. He promptly came back for me.
As I wrote about it elsewhere that same night:
The horses had been grazing a little further beyond, and he said they’d suddenly spooked; he went over to see what startled them, and found a yearling elk lying on the ground. It got up and stood, seemingly a bit unsteadily, next to the barbed-wire fence, but otherwise refused to move. He was afraid it was injured, and was already worried about what to do for it. He met me part of the way back, pointed it out, and we walked toward it together.
She was standing there awkwardly, all her weight seemingly borne on one side, utterly immobile. We thought, based on her unusual stance, that she was injured; if she were, we would have had to call area wildlife rehabilitation specialists, because an injured yearling would likely not survive the night. But we needed to be sure. It’s not uncommon for elk youngsters, like their human counterparts, to need extra sleep. They’ll find a safe place to curl up while the adults forage for food, then rejoin the herd before darkfall. In this environment, the coats of the adults blend into the landscape magnificently, and they can be very, very near by and still just out of view to human eyes. We did not want to “save” a hoof clan child who was perfectly healthy and had merely been awakened from her nap by the hoofbeats of four horses.
I took my hands out of my pockets and extended them slightly, talking softly the whole time. The yearling didn’t take her eyes off mine; just watched and waited. We couldn’t tell whether she might be caught in some wire, or otherwise hurt, and so I walked west along the fenceline until I found a big enough gap to crawl under; Wings held the strands up for me to slide carefully beneath.
The little elk turned, following the sound of my voice, until she was facing 180 degrees the other way, looking directly at me again. I approached the same way: hands slightly extended, talking softly, stopping every few steps to let her look me in the eye. She made quizzical, cud-chewing expressions with her mouth, jaws passing at angles over each other, occasionally a row of perfect, brilliant white lower teeth or a tip of bright pink tongue showing through.
She watched me closely the entire time, limpid black eyes pinned to mine. She didn’t seem at all afraid, as I would have expected had she actually been injured, but still, her awkward pose didn’t change.
The horses watched it all from a safe distance; the dogs milled around, wanting to give chase but understanding that this was not prey. Through it all, the yearling never took her eyes from mine, other than the moment she noticed Griffin 50 yards to the southwest and seemingly wanted to draw my attention to it.
As I got closer, she began to shift her weight a bit from hoof to hoof, still making faces, curious but also wary. She shook her head a couple of times, ears fluttering like big brown mittens, then resumed staring at me intently with black eyes of liquid velvet. I advanced slowly but steadily, and she let me get within a yard, perhaps as little as two feet, before deciding she wasn’t quite that brave yet: She dipped her head, turned, and bounded off, fuzzy copper flanks shining in the low December sun. She seemed to know exactly where she was headed, so I don’t think she was truly separated from her herd; more likely, she was stretching her legs and exploring her boundaries as the elk equivalent of a teenager. But halfway across the field, she stopped and turned to look back at us for a long moment, as if to say, “Thank you, and you’re welcome.”
She returned the following day, to the same spot. The horses let us know she was there, and I went out long enough to make sure that she was all right, but without approaching so closely this time. She seemed quite happy — content, unafraid. The horses still eyed her, but now with frank and open curiosity rather than any trace of concern, and she in turn seemed equally fascinated by them.
We haven’t seen her since, but we’re fairly sure she’s been around; the horses seem to see her even when we can’t. And that’s as it should be; after all, if we can’t see her, it’s unlikely that anyone who might have less benign intentions is seeing her, either. Our hope is that she remains within the safety of her herd, and grows up to have a long, happy, healthy life.
On the day she first appeared, Wings used his phone to filmed the entire encounter between the little elk and me. We haven’t yet found a way to transfer the footage to my laptop, but it exists. For now, we have the still photos to remind us of her beauty.
Oddly, she appeared shortly after we acquired a new piece from Randy Roughface that we’ve featured here before: a little sandstone elk, face upturned toward the sun. From its description in the Other Artists: Sculpture gallery here on the site:
This strong young warrior of the Hoof Clan, Elk, has been coaxed out of the sandstone of his family’s mountain home by Randy Roughface (Ponca). His coat is the sunny golden shade of the sunrise, a beacon of warmth in the winter landscape; his rack of antlers, so full and bold that they touch his back as he gazes playfully skyward. Elk stands 4.25″ high by 3.5″ long by 1″ across at the widest point of the base (dimensions approximate). Another view shown at the link.
Sandstone
$145 + shipping, handling, and insurance
I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it; little did I know that, in a matter of days, a real version would pay us a visit. Yes, this little vintage sculpture is of an adult male, true, but it’s a member of her clan, and it’s beautiful.
Just like the young spirit who came to us last month, and who gave us her own beautiful, magical gift.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
