Winning the Wildlife Lottery

 Wednesday, September 23, 2020

I had turned off the alarm around midnight knowing Bob would need more sleep after his late night of "elk bugling". And with the alarm, my plans for an early morning visit to Mt. Rushmore were also shut down. If this had been a "must do" activity I would have been disappointed...but it wasn't. Visiting later in the day could still be a possibility, but I knew by then it would be quite crowded. I was determined to avoid being around a lot of people on this trip. I did not want to come home with a souvenir virus.

Even with no alarm, we were both up by 7 am. I think it takes more than 3 days to adjust to a new time zone and our bodies were still under the impression that it was 8 am...long past the time we needed to be out of bed. 

New plans were formulated for the day...a drive through Wind Cave National Park and then the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Bob had seen a big herd of buffalo late last night and was curious if we could find them again. We were in the car ready to pull out of the driveway when I remembered the bag of carrots I had brought along to feed the "begging burros"...glad I remembered!

The AirBnB where we were staying was right on the edge of Wind Cave National Park. We entered through a back road and right away ran smack dab into a giant herd of bison. Well we didn't literally run into them, but came close! It was just us and the buffalo and with them totally blocking the road, we had no choice but to stop and spend some time with them. 

We were surrounded on all sides!

There were a couple of opportunities where we could have "maybe" squeezed past the bison, but an hour later we were still sitting there enthralled with the opportunity to be in the middle of these awesome creatures! 

Driving on, Bob immediately spotted a coyote running across a field. He was pretty excited with his find since seeing a coyote is fairly rare. I could barely see the animal but with the zoom on my camera I was able to get a fuzzy photo. The coyote was running through a prairie dog town so it was a "two-fer" wildlife sighting!

While we were stopped watching the coyote, the herd of buffalo slowly started moving in our direction.

Our next safari encounter came soon after with an antelope buck and his harem of does. The group of 7 females was being guarded and corralled by the large male. His actions showed we were making him nervous so we got our photos and drove on.

With the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Round Up only two days away, I had worried that all of the bison might already be penned up and we wouldn't see any. But...as we drove through the Wildlife Loop we encountered two more herds. This road was quite busy with cars as well but at times the only option was to just stop and give the buffalo the right-away. They were not at all intimidated by vehicles and a couple of times we could feel them pushing on the car from behind and even licking it!

A bison car wash.

I had almost forgotten about the burros when we found them hanging out by the entrance to the state park. When one of them wandered over and discovered we were handing out carrots the whole gang followed! I was busy trying to do a video of Bob feeding them out the driver's side window when two more crammed their heads into my window and were nuzzling my neck trying to make sure they got their share. Even breaking the carrots into smaller pieces the whole pound was gone within a couple of minutes! 

And this is why they call them begging burros! 😂

I let out quite the scream when I turned around and had this staring at me!!!

Throughout the morning we munched on the snacks we had in the car but waited till we were back at the apartment to have a proper lunch. I was fighting a bit of a headache so declined the offer to go fly-fishing with Jim, the owner, but Bob jumped at the chance and the two guys took off. 

After a nap I was feeling better and went for a walk down the gravel road. I was just on my way back when the guys returned. Bob had brought back photos and videos to share with me. Jim was able to catch about a dozen fish while Bob watched. I was surprised to see that where they were fishing looked more like a ditch than what I would call a stream.

Tortilla soup was on the dinner menu...an easy dump & heat recipe. I had browned and seasoned ground beef in advance so all that was left was to add cans of tomatoes, beans, corn, etc. Topped with crushed nacho chips and grated cheese it made a great meal which we enjoyed sitting on the deck. 

It was still long before the actual sunset time, but when the sun dipped below the hills the temperature dropped noticeably. We decided to go out for one last drive to see if we could spot any more wildlife. Bob also wanted to show me something that he had discovered when he was out with Jim...an old school house and cemetery. The old log buildings were like visiting a scene from days gone by.

A two-hole outhouse! Not set up for social distancing!

We went down one of the roads that the guys had been on to go fishing just a few hours earlier and SURPRISE...we found ourselves in the middle of a herd of bison again. The buffalo had not been there in the afternoon but now they were grazing and once again blocking the road. If you are counting, this was the 4th time we had gotten in the middle of a herd! 

With no one else around, we just stopped in the middle of the road, turned off the engine and watched and listened to the massive creatures. Grunts, growls, chomping…all around us! Here is just a snippet of what we heard. Turn the sound up and listen...

We watched until the sunset. Not wanting to be on the roads after dark, we reluctantly said goodbye to the bison and started back to the apartment. 

On the way we noticed a couple of cars parked at the pullout where we had seen the coyote and antelope earlier in the day so we stopped. A man in one of the cars pointed out a herd of 17 elk…a large buck with huge antlers and 16 does. They were off in the distance but with the binoculars and my camera zoom, we were able to see them. How exciting! 

Taking a photo at such a long distance with low light did not give good results...but it at least preserved a great memory!

As we were cleaning and packing up back at the cabin, I glanced at a Custer State Park travel guide that we had picked up. A double page spread highlighted all of the wildlife common to the park and I was happy that we had seen all but two species (although technically a couple of the animals we had seen in the Badlands rather than Custer.)

What we did see:

• birds - several different kinds
• bighorn sheep (Badlands)
• prairie dogs
• white-tailed deer…an abundance of these were always in the valley near the apartment
• mule deer…(Badlands)
• elk
• burros
• pronghorn antelopes

 What we hadn’t seen (at least yet!)

• Mountain lions
• Mountain goats

All in all a great day of wildlife viewing!