Pronghorn Photo Shoot

 I was driving back from photographing birds at the lake and literally had my camera with the telephoto lens on my lap when some pronghorn were right next to the road. What an opportunity! So I stopped, rolled down my window, and started snapping away.

The pronghorn are such interesting animals, North America's fastest land mammals. (There are invertebrates that are apparently even faster.) They used to have several relatives, but they died out at the end of the Pleistocene due to warmer climates (roughly about 10,000 years ago).

The pronghorn were definitely keeping an eye on me, and they moved a little further away.

But there were still close enough I could see them pooping.

They often have a characteristic when they poop called SPUD--scratch, paw, urinate, defecate. If you see little cleared areas near some pellets, they were probably made by pronghorn.

Another cool thing about pronghorn is that they don't jump over fences, instead they go underneath them. And if you ever have one running alongside your vehicle, slow down. They often will make a 90 degree turn and run right in front of you.

I felt so lucky to get to spend some time with them. And in fact, my photos of them were probably the best photos of the day!

Oh, what eyelashes! About the only thing cuter are baby pronghorn, which are generally born the end of May.

You can learn more about pronghorns here.