2012 Year-End Bighorn Sheep Re-Cap

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

We were so busy traveling around northern Arizona, southern Utah, this New Year that we forgot to post this...

Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis)

We love big horn sheep (Ovis canadensis) here at our blog. 

In 2012, we made the following posts about bighorns...

Bighorns of the Colorado River Wilderness...

Back-country Falls: Not What You Might Think

Spotting our favorite desert creatures...

King of the Desert

And, a 2010 post: Whitewater Canyon

We hope you can get the chance to look them over.  We will try to post more about the bighorn in 2013. 

Bighorns of the Colorado River Wilderness...

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

As we have written about before, spotting bighorn sheep can be a major challenge.  The sheep stand on rock out-crops high in the mountains, safe from their predators.  Typically, if you are lucky, at most, you will get to see one or two at a time.

That was why I was shocked one day, to see a herd of bighorns just "hanging out" in the wilderness of the Black Mountains of Arizona (the same Black Mountains referred to here) between US93 and the Colorado River, below Hoover Dam and near Willow Beach. I was able to drive up pretty close to them, but they were on the other side of tall earthen berm that I did not exactly feel comfortable trying to completely cross, especially alone and carrying my camera equipment.

Note this one has an ear-tag for ID.

  It was in this very area, in 2011, that we saw a lonely burro, trying to hide in the shade on a hot day.  Today, I waved to a passing car to tell them they should stop and see the bighorns, but apparently not everyone find the bighorns as interesting as us.


Though the sun was in an poor photographic position, the bighorns were not in the least bit shy.

King of the Desert?

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

Tradition says the lion is the "king of the jungle."  Other traditions go even further and say the lion is the "king of all beasts".  While I may accept that “king of the jungle” stuff because I do not live in the jungle, I object to the characterization that the lion is king of all beasts. The lion is certainly not the "king of the desert."  I am the king of the desert! Who else could hold such a title?  A chuckwalla?  I think not.

 Chuckwalla...King of the Desert? Not quite.

Gila Monster...King of the Desert? Scary name and venomous...  Maybe, but nah!

We are the few able to climb up the steep unstable walls of the desert valleys and sit up on the rock perches far above the road.  Sometimes we will look down on you or, on other occasions, we may flat out ignore you and look over our desert. 

 King of the Desert!  Male Bighorn Sheep (Ram)

Coyotes can't reach us; cougars can’t reach us; you humans certainly can’t reach us.  But, I can tease you all with my stoic downward looking gaze.  My huge curling horns (sometimes weighing more than 30 lbs.) and expressionless face may give you the impression that I exist for the sole purpose of you photographing me.  However, to make it clear who is in charge, I frequently make taking my picture extra difficult by sitting up on the rocks with the sun to my back, placing me in a dark, cool shadow.

Montezuma Grade, the road leading down into and up out of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Valley Floor is a popular place for us to roam around and be seen.  Our other grazing and watering areas near Lower Willows in Coyote Canyon are much more remote and closed to vehicle traffic.  At a pull-off about half-way down the grade and looking due east over the entire Anza-Borrego valley floor and toward the Salton Sea on the horizon in the distance, I have seen some kind of board with a picture of one of my distant relatives on it.

 

My Typical View From Crawford Overlook on Montezuma Grade..Salton Sea and Glamis Sand Dunes at the Horizon

I cannot read the native language of the writing of the board, but I am guessing the board is a sign telling the reader this is ovis canadensis (big horn sheep) territory.

I am forced to wear a green collar.  I did not get to pick the color or approve the placement of the collar on me.  I would have shown my disapproval to its placement on me by gently nibbling or firmly biting, if the need be the fingers of the ranger who collared me.  However, the ranger drugged me from a distance with a chemical dart shot from a rifle a distance away.  The ranger lacked the guts to try and approach me and drug me directly. 

Note: Gila Monster drawing from Wikimedia Commons.