
Recently, I had an amazing opportunity to visit several National Parks and State Parks in the Great Plains. During the trip I took a number of pictures of Bison. There were large numbers of Buffalo in the Custer State Park in South Dakota and also in the Yellowstone National Park in the Hayden Valley area. I was so amazed that the buffalo seemed to just enjoy walking along the highway on the pavement among the cars! Of course, the big animals do have the right-of-way in the park areas. The buffalo often tie up traffic as they stand or walk along roads in the parks. The Rangers in Yellowstone’s Hayden Valley area actually encourage the Bison to move off the road by using recorded grunts that are played out of the windows of the Ranger’s cars!
I also was totally shocked to find that a small group of about forty or so of the buffalo were trotting through the Fishing Bridge Trailer Park campground in Yellowstone National Park early one evening at twilight. This appearance of buffalo in the campground is highly unusual. I heard the Bison before I poked my head out of my trailer and had a look. I was amazed to see the herd trotting along both the last small roadway in the campground (about 10 feet behind my trailer) and in the forest at the edge of the campground. During the trip I also got to see Bison fording or crossing the Yellowstone River. That was really interesting to see. The very young bulls also were testing each other and play-fighting by butting heads.
So I managed to get to see a lot of big buffalo in a safe and enjoyable way. I took these pictures between Sept. 3-10, 2011 in Custer State Park and in Yellowstone National Park. Please click on the thumbnail image to see the larger picture. Enjoy!





