November 5, 2022
The day before brought in three or four inches of snow, followed by rain and sleet in the afternoon. During the night a windstorm swept through the forest, and the logging roads were blocked by the snapped tops of douglas fir, grand fir, and western larch. The larch needles were beginning to erupt in bright yellow colors across the mountain hillsides and the cold weather caused the deciduous trees of the forest to break out in bright colors. After driving into the forest in dark morning hours and moving several fallen conifers from the roads, we parked and made our way into an old clearcut.
We moved around the leeward side of a tree covered ridge, where a slow breeze pushed into our faces. From up above, where a crease in the hill broke our plain of view, barks and chirps broke the silence. We were standing on a muddy trail, covered with tracks of white-tailed deer and elk, and cool freezing air numbed our faces. We watched and waited.
Small brown ferns, thistle, currants and grasses swayed in the breeze and the face of an elk appeared on the hill. After several minutes of indecisiveness, it made its way directly towards us at midslope. Only after she was within 20 yards and the wind was in her favor, did she make the decision to move off in the other direction.
The most interesting aspect of the elk´s behavior was the sound of its vocalizations. I am accustomed to the meeeuuuu sound that cow elk will often make, but these cows were mostly barking. The barks were so different that they sounded doglike on our initial approach. It even caused me to think there could be wolves on the other side of the ridge before we had seen the animals making the sounds. Unfortunately, the camera turns off prior to the barks being made again. The video shows just how close you can get to an elk though if you play the wind in your favor.
Empty Forests 