I am finally nearing the end of my photos from my brief stay in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota at the beginning of November. I captured quite a few images of wild horses, bison, and prairie dogs at the national park and it has been a real joy reviewing the photos on my computer and relive the memories after my return home. Normally I try to post images on my blog that are a week old or less, but I figure that you will forgive me for posting images that are three weeks old.
Here are a few selected images of American Bison (Bison bison) that I spotted at the park in early November. Most often the were simply grazing, so frequently I would try to capture some interesting background, as in the first photo below. I was quite excited to spot the young bison in the second photo. It was quite a bit smaller than the adults, but already seemed to be growing horns.
The bison in the final photo lifted its head momentarily, allowing me to capture this informal portrait. It may look like I was really close to the bison, but I was using a telephoto zoom lens on my camera and I am pretty sure that I took the shot from inside my car. However, the bison was close enough that I had to zoom out a little to 322mm (on an 18-400mm lens) to fit the bison’s enormous head in the frame.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
You are forgiven:) Such magnificent animals! Glad there are still some out there roaming as they should be.
Lovely shots, Mike. How delightful to have spotted a calf. The first time I saw a bison, I was absolutely staggered by the size of them. I had obviously been anticipating how big they were but they were even bigger than that. They are impressive beasties.
Thanks, Laura. I drive a KIA Soul and sometimes it seemed to me that the bisons were as big as my car. I photographed the bison mostly from inside my car–I have heard horror stories of tourists that were gored when they turned their backs to bison that were really close in order to take selflies with their cell phones.
I have seen videos of people behaving that way but thankfully have never observed it in person. I hope it is a very small minority of folk who behave that way. I absolutely cannot imagine taking the risk of getting that close to any large or dangerous wild animal let alone one as powerful as a bison.
I totally agree. It seems crazy, but some people are clueless about the fact that wild animals are not as tame as they sometimes appear to be.
Hi!
My son is completing a writing assignment for his 7th grade homeschool co-op biology class in which he is creating a set of Facebook posts that a black saddlebags dragonfly and his animal friends would make. Your photos of black saddlebags dragonflies are awesome, and my son would love to add some of them to his posts (adding photos is part of the assignment), but he doesn’t want to violate your copyright. Therefore, I’m contacting you to see if you would be willing to grant him permission to use your photos for his school assignment, which will only be uploaded to his teacher for grading and thus won’t appear anywhere online.
If you aren’t comfortable with this, I understand, but if you are fine with my son using some of your photos, please inform us what your expectations and requirements are, and I will be sure to have my son follow them and list your website on the required bibliography page.
I am totally ok with having your son use the photos for the purposes that you described. Best wishes to him as he works on the assignment. Cheers, Mike
Wow, what an experience seeing these beauties, Mike! You captured some excellent photos–I especially like the last one showing off that ginormous head.
Thanks, Ellen. It is really cool to see the bison up close (but safely inside my car).