Welcoming Spring

When you spend your entire life on a wind-swept subarctic mountain it must be a relief when the temperatures break the freezing mark and the snow begins to recede. But, then again, maybe that's just my biased human perspective - perhaps this young Dall ram is thinking "Man...how am I going to survive the next 5 months of scorching heat?" 

This scene - and this shot - was an unexpected bonus. We had spotted a group of male Dall Sheep from several kilometers away and hiked in to photograph them. Given the nature of the terrain we were pretty sure we had found - and were working with - the entire group of rams. Seconds before I captured this image I was pointed in the opposite direction working with the other males using my D500 and a long lens (my Sigma 500mm f4 Sport). I heard someone whisper "Brad...turn around" and I saw this young ram RIGHT behind me. As it turned out, two additional rams (including the one in this shot) had come down from high on the mountain while we were working with the others (presumably to join them). Anyway...very fortunately I was "wearing" a shorter focal length setup (my D5 and 70-200mm f4 VR) and was able to quickly pull it out of its holster and nab this shot. Sometimes you just get lucky!

Subject: Male Dall Sheep (Ovis dalli) enjoying the spring melt
Location: Southwest Yukon Territory, Canada
Camera: Nikon D5
Lens: Nikkor 70-200mm f4 VR @ 200mm. VR On and in "Normal" mode
Exposure: 1/1600s @ f6.3; ISO 100. -0.33 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.
Crop: Extremely minor - this is about 95% of full frame

A whole lot more info about this shot - including a 2400 pixel version it - can be found on my website using the link immediately below.

http://www.naturalart.ca/galleries/latest/

Comments and critiques welcomed - probably best to view the larger version prior to doing so!

Cheers...

Brad

PS: Like all wildlife images on my website and that I post on NPN, the subject is fully wild and completely unconstrained. Besides the potential impact of my presence, nothing has been done to intentionally alter or affect the ongoing behavior of the subject and, of course, there has been no use of any form of bait or other form of wildlife attractants (including vocalizations).