After my family and I moved to the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, I was excited to explore our new environs and discover all the wildlife in our midst.
We had lived on a much smaller but magical Gulf Island where many creatures frequented our backyard daily, as it was more like a lush nature reserve for them than a barren urban lawn. Among my wildlife friends, which included a host of lively songbirds, were the families of black-tailed deer, who grazed and snoozed in a large patch of tall grass below our house. It was wonderful to see the fawns with their spotted fur, the gentle does, and the young bucks with their velvety antlers nibbling on native plants year-round. And ironically, just before we moved, one of our neighbors spotted a bull elk — the second-largest living species of deer in the world — just down the road from our house.
That was the second time in 30 years we had heard about an elk on Salt Spring Island.
And now, since we moved to Ladysmith, we have been lucky enough to spot local herds of Roosevelt elk in the farm fields next to the highway just a few minutes from our home. But there is one famous Vancouver Island community, Youbou, where elk stroll down the main street, plundering fruit trees and gardens, blithely ignoring us humans. One early fall, on our first visit to Youbou, we were surprised to spot a bull elk right next to us in someone’s front yard, and so, a few weeks later, we decided to head back to hopefully photograph some of the elk there. And to our delight, we were met by a small group of elk cows and their calves grazing in the forest beside the road. The soft morning light and this elegant mother with the rich brown and golden-tan of her coat framed by the warm fall colors made this portrait one of my favorites.
