I don't know if it's accurate to say I'm on vacation since I've been unemployed/retired for just over a year, but it really feels like a vacation this week in Custer. I've alternated between floating around the hotel pool and hiking through the Black Hills for the past few days.

The wildlife species I've been looking for this week has been elk. Supposedly there are hundreds of elk roaming around Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park. All I have to prove that is a very dark and noisy image I snapped after dusk last spring, but I have never driven arond a curve and seen a herd grazing in a sunlit meadow. This is the time of year when the bulls are bugling, so I heard six or more bellowing at each other this morning. I think I caught a half-second glimpse of one 200 yards away. Fortunately on the way back to the hotel for my noon hot tub break, I came across a couple of Rocky Mountain Bighorns in Custer State Park.

Photos from this trip were included in the Autumn 2008 gallery.

I guess to see elk I need to head down to Simmons Wildlife Safari near Omaha again. There the elk graze next to the road and I can shoot with my wide-angle lens.