Big Shot

I was cruising down the road the other day and as always I was looking for something to take a picture of.   I had gone for a hike in this particular area about 2 weeks earlier and noticed some very active sheep beds up on a side hill and made a mental note that day to check them for sheep next time I was in the area.  As this was the, next time, I was in the area I stopped the truck, took a little walk to where I could see the beds and pulled up the binoculars.  To my surprise there was a great looking ram standing there in the open and as my eyes focused I noticed that there were several other rams laying down.  I ran the short distance back to the truck, grabbed the scope and ran back to my vantage point to see exactly what I was looking at.  Turns out there were 2 great looking rams and several smaller ones.  The biggest one looked to have very grey patches on him and was obviously much lighter in color than the others.  It was also obvious by the way he tormented all the other rams that he was king of the herd.  As I watched him, constantly reminding the other rams who was boss, I devised a plan to get close.

Luckily the sheep were in a spot that I thought I had a good chance of getting close to them, unluckily they were at the top of huge cliff and the rocks and scree were going to be difficult to move over quietly.  Since this was the only option, I grabbed my stuff and took off .  The climb was longer than anticipated so I was very nervous the sheep were going to be gone by the time I was in postition.  After I quickly adjusting the camera settings I slowly crawled on my hands and knees to peer over.  To my excitement not only were the sheep all laying there but there were 3 more that had joined their ranks during my stalk.  I set up the camera and began shooting. With the sheep having no idea I was there I got to watch sheep doing what sheep do.

The king of the herd was definitely the grey one I had seen bullying the others earlier.  From my new vantage point about 50 yards from the sheep I watched as the big ram pawed out a bed, throwing rock and dirt about 20 feet behind him.  Once the bed was completed the second biggest ram in the herd came and layed down right in it.  The big ram looked at him for about 5 seconds then rammed him right in the hind quarter.  The ram jumped up and couldn’t get out of the bed fast enough, the big guy, who was taking no guff, immediately laid down in the newly vacated bed.  Later all the sheep stood up and the big ram continued to demonstrate his dominance.  I snapped the photo above seconds after the big ram and the second biggest ram smacked heads.  If you look close you can see dust that was kicked up during the collision still hanging in the air.  It was an awesome experience to watch the herd dynamics of these bachelor bighorns.  I also never knew how many different noises sheep can make.  They were doing a lot of talking as they fed, beat up on each other and wandered around.  The big ram might be going grey and look a little beat up but he is still the undisputed big shot.

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