Bison rut at Elk Island National Park and how much I miss the real prairies.

So our 2014 field season is over, all the pressed plants have been sent in to the experts, all the field guides and hand lenses have been returned, and we've all moved out of Red Deer and into Edmonton for a month of lichen ID and sorting. As fun as it is to live in a real city with lots of restaurants and festivals and museums and indoor climbing, I still sorely miss working every day in the rolling grasslands of Southern Alberta. The Hesperostipas are probably just losing the last of their dart-seeds, the Astragaluses probably all have pods now, and it's probably all starting to get that really lovely golden glow of the very beginning of autumn (even better when the Rumex turns a rich deep burgundy). And I'm stuck way up here in Edmonton surrounded by roads and buildings and beyond that, farmland and parkland and so many god damn trees. Prairie withdrawal is a serious issue...

On the bright side, Elk Island National Park is sort of nearby, only 45 minutes east of the city, and as it turns out, August is rutting season for the bison! The bison rut is when the males bellow, wallow, and fight each other to establish dominance and mating rights. So I got myself over to Elk Island for a day with the goal of finding and photographing some rutting bison.

Elk Island has two population of bison: the plains bison in the north and the wood bison in the south. As much as I would have loved to see wood bison (since I've seen plenty of plains bison at Grasslands National Park), the north section of the park has way more trails to offer, so I set off on the popular Hayburger Trail. As soon as you hop onto the trailhead, it's pretty clear that the area is a hotspot for bison. There was just as much bison poop on and around the trail as there was cow poop in most of the ranchland I worked in, and bison fur and hoofprints everywhere. I definitely stepped in more than a few bison pies... However, in the whole 11km trail I didn't see a single bison. Although I did happen across some dried up quicksand.

I don't think this was actually a danger; it was all dried up.

Oh well, no bison there, that just means they're hiding out at another part of the park, right? Time for another hike! Maybe a nice hike around a lake this time, maybe the bison were all just thirsty. To the Tawayik Lake Trail! Oh wait.... where is this trail? Where is the lake? All I see is a bunch of wet meadow... Oh. Okay. Turns out the lake was more of less dried up to a large wetland. But I did get a nice hour-long nap at the birding platform and a quick 5km loop near the lake. Found a friendly beaver, lots of baby American Coots, several handfuls of raspberries and a thousand mosquitoes. But still no bison!

Beaver!

16km down, I'm getting hungry and tired and ready to head back to Edmonton, and still not a single bison. But there is a 1km driving loop called the Bison Loop, I mean that's not nearly as glamourous as finding them while hiking, and if I didn't find them in that 16km there probably won't be any in this teeny area, but what the heck it'll only take a few minutes, might as well check it out. And of course, as soon as I get in there, there are a bunch of bison right at the beginning. They are bellowing. And wallowing. And being bison. UGHHH. So a couple hours later, I've finally gotten my fill of bison rut. These things happened within that couple hours:

• Beautiful sunset
• Incredible amount of bellowing
• Lots of wallowing
• Met a gentleman named Steve who was doing contract bison photography for Elk Island who taught me a bit about bison behaviour, such as when to run away (tail is raised and bison is not pooping = RUN)
• One very agitated male bison started bellowing and trotting towards us very intimidatingly. As we turned to hop back into our cars for relative safety, we then realized another male had snuck up behind us on the road, and the two were getting ready to face off. 
• Places I would HIGHLY recommend avoiding: the space between two angry male bison in rutting season. 
• Some really (REALLY) stupid young teenager actually approached the dominant male bison and his mate within ~30 meters while holding out a fistful of grass. This makes me wonder about whether letting tourists hang out with free-ranging bison during the rut is really a good idea after all...
• I got really scared when a bison passed by a couple meters from my car. I don't think a little Toyota Echo would stand up too well to an angry 1.6tonne charging horned beast. 

This bison was just itching for a fight, but was too scared to actually fight the dominant male. He sure did make a racket though! 

Two male bison facing off for a fight (eventually one charged and the other backed down). 

Overall, there were lots of false charges and bellowing, and plenty of bison being bison, but no actual fights broke out. The only logical conclusion is to return to Elk Island again and again until I see a real bison fight.