Bison Behavior

While in South Dakota and North Dakota we noticed that Bison like to make wallows.  They rub themselves on the ground exposing the dry earth which helps them in several ways.  It helps them to shed their winter coat, it coats them with dirt that keeps bugs away and it is also soothing for them as the ground is cool.  Bison also rub against trees a great deal to help them remove their shedding winter coat.  We went up  and explored the wallows and some trees that looked very damaged and here is what we found!

 We found wallows of various sizes with lots of hoof prints and even some Bison fluff laying in them

Be also found a lot of different sized hoof prints as well.

There were plenty of trees that were damaged from the Bison rubbing on them, some were even dead!

And here's the evidence, Bison fuzz!!
We noticed that the Badlands of North Dakota are quite different than the Badlands of South Dakota!  The South Dakota Badlands are quite desolate looking, and the hills (if that's what you want to call them) look like they should be on an alien planet!

We visited part of Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota where they have Wild Horses!

They were so beautiful and majestic looking and some had adorable little colts with them!  There are two other areas of the park that are not connected that I would love to go visit some day. 

Wildlife

Here are some more pictures of my vacation to South Dakota.  If you've never had a chance to visit this State, I highly recommend it!  In Custer State Park they have a Wildlife Loop you can drive where you will get a chance to see all sorts of animals.  There are plenty of Prairie Dog towns, Bison, Antelope, Elk, and they even have Wild Burro that are very friendly!  They come right up to your car and stick their head in the window for some treats!

Here are some pictures of the Bison. Female Bison hang out in big herds with their young and the males are generally solitary until it gets closer to breeding season.  Usually at the end of June or beginning of July males start to gather up a harem for breeding season which is during July/August.  Here are some of the female Bison with their adorable young calves.

 The above picture appears to be one of last years calves with one of this years calves.  Below is a picture of some rather fearless Antelope.                            

 There is a small herd of wild Burro in the park as well.  This cute dark colored one is a baby and the mother is in the photo below.

       They were all about the same size but had very different coats than a horse.  This one had longer scraggly fur and there was even one with a wavy coat about the same length.  They were all so cute and very hungry!! 

In a rather secluded part of the park we saw a small herd of Elk, they have very impressive antlers!

    Be sure to read my blog tomorrow, I will have more vacation pictures for you!!

Vacation!!!

Hey all!  The next few posts will be about my vacation to South Dakota and North Dakota last week!  I love South Dakota, there are so many things to see out there like Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, Bear Country park, many caves, the Badlands, and Devil's Tower!  Our first stop is to see and feed the Prairie Dogs right before you enter the Badlands, this is one of my favorite things to do!  There is a gift shop and you pay 50 cents for a bag of unsalted peanuts for the prairie dogs.  They are kinda skittish at the beginning of the season so they were a bit hesitant to take the peanuts from my hand.  After a little coaxing though, they come up.

They are so adorable, I wish I could take one home!  I know, you are all thinking about Monkey Pox right now, but the prairie dogs that had Monkey Pox where imported from Africa so it is now illegal to import prairie dogs.  You can purchase them from a breeder if you want one as a pet and they are Monkey Pox free!
Our next stop was Custer State Park.  We camped in the Grace Coolidge campground and found out that there was a resident Bison that lived there and in the adjacent prairie across the creek!  We soon found out that the pathway to the creek was THROUGH our campsite!  He was fearless and he didn't seem to care who was there taking his picture or what!  When we first arrived he was hanging out near the resident camper scratching himself on the dumpster and on signs near their camper.

One morning while I was sleeping (in the van and NOT in the tent, I might add) he startled John when he was making breakfast.  John heard a noise looked to his right and the Bison was approaching fast!  He had very little time to run around to the other side of the picnic table to watch the Bison walk through our campsite and cross the creek!  There was maybe 5 or 6 feet between John and the Bison!  Here I am hiding in the van taking his picture as he walks across the street to walk through our campsite!

 This is our picnic table, he just crossed the creek and stopped to take a drink before continuing on his way.

It was pretty terrifying at first but we soon got used to him and just got out of his way and let him walk through!  John named him Bucky Bison!  It was quite the adventure and not what you usually encounter while camping!