Roadtrip Images

It’s the rut season in the Grand Tetons. The moose are getting frisky again. Saw this young pair the other morning.

The Grand Teton moose rut typically begins in September. It starts when the bulls strip the velvet off their antlers. They destroy a lot of small trees in the process as they thrash their racks in the branches. Once the velvet is off, the cows (females) start to group together with the bulls. During the summer the cows tend to steer clear of any bulls they come across. The rut is also when the bulls start to square off with each other to see who’s boss.

This makes for some great wildlife photography. In some cases two or three bulls will be with five or six cows and lots of interesting things can happen. On this morning there was just these two young moose casually feeding. They started to get pretty affectionate and made for some interesting photographs. I’ll include a couple more below.

Most wildlife photographers shoot with telephoto lenses. They’re referred to as long lenses or big glass. You need to stay far enough away from the wildlife as to not disturb them. That requires a telephoto. You can spend a lot of money on a high end telephoto with autofocus and image stabilization. I go into much more detail about long lenses in this post. For these photos I used my Nikkor 80-400mm telephoto zoom. It’s light enough to hand hold and has image stabilization.

There are a couple of gathering areas for the moose during this time of year so as long as you know where those are you stand a good chance of seeing them in the early morning. Unfortunately, many other photographers know these areas too. It can get a little crowded at times but the moose seem to be used to it. As long as people don’t try to get too close, everyone can get some good images.

The variety of wildlife in Grand Teton National Park is just incredible. Moose, bison, bear, elk, pronghorn and a wide assortment of smaller animals. I primarily shoot landscapes but I enjoy seeing and photographing wildlife as well. Having an affordable long lens in my arsenal makes these outings productive without breaking the bank.

We’ve been scouting for elk lately. We’ve seen quite a few but haven’t got close to the big bulls yet. Their rut is starting too so maybe our luck will change. Meanwhile the landscape photo opportunities continue as well. This season makes for a busy time for photographers. I guess someone has to do it.

As always, you can see higher resolution images on our Facebook page. Please give us a like while you’re there.

Nikon D850 with Nikkor 80-400mm at 400mm. f/5.6 at 1/640 of a second. ISO 640.