Ovis Canadensis

I've spent time in the mountains around Flaming Gorge since I was a kid.  It's one of my favorite places to be.  Almost without fail, we've always seen bighorn sheep in the area.  This year, we saw a lot of bighorn sheep.  In fact, I saw two different herds while there this past weekend.  The first herd was hanging out in a farmers field, just south of the town of Manila, Utah.  There were twenty two animals in this herd.  On Friday evening, I spent a good bit of time watching these guys.  They were just hanging out in the field, enjoying dinner.  Before long, they must have decided it was time to head out and it turns out they were headed in my direction.  It was pretty late in the evening and the light was rapidly fading, so I had to bump up the ISO a bit, but I still managed to get some decent shots.  

These images were created using the Canon 5D Mk II and the Canon 500mm f/4.0L IS lens.

On Saturday morning, while watching the sunrise from the Dowd Mountain Overlook, I realized that there was a herd of 9 bighorn sheep grazing on the hill below me.  It was still pretty dark, so I kept an eye on them hoping to get in a decent shot when there was enough light.  Well, they kept working there way towards the ridge and I wanted to grab a shot of the ram before he headed over the hill.  So, I cranked up the ISO to 6400 and fired off a couple of shots.

This image was created using the Canon 5D Mk II, Canon 500mm f/4.0L IS lens and Canon 1.4x III extender.