Awesome sight

First let me say I wish I had my camera with me today, because what I saw was awesome. All summer long I have been watching a group of antelope, every morning and night as I came to and from work I have been observed between 20-30 antelope in an area I drive through about 3 times a week. Over the past few months I have noticed the antelope spread out in small groups with the bucks intermingled with the other bucks and does, all except for one buck that was significantly bigger than the other bucks in the area. This one buck was always alone in the same field, never with any other antelope. Almost every day there he was often bedded down less than 20 feet off the road. Well today I observed the antelope in this area gathered into larger groups of between 6-10 antelope, with this one larger buck in a group of 7 does. When I noticed him this morning with his does I also noticed there were a couple of bucks several hundred yards away watching his group. Several times the larger buck would leave on an all out run towards the other bucks and chase them away, only to return to his group of does. At one point one of the does made a run for it and was quickly chased down by the large buck and brought back to the group. Well after watching for 30 minutes and making myself late to work I decided it was time to head out to work, thinking what I had saw was pretty cool.

Well fast forward 9 hours to the trip home and in the same field in the same location was this large buck with his does. Stopping to watch the big guy again I also noticed another large buck slowly coming towards the big buck and his does. When he got to within 150-200 yards the big guy took off like he had in the morning, the only difference was this other buck was not going to back down. After sizing each other up the large buck dropped his head preparing for a fight. The other buck took the challenge and soon these two were engaged in an all out battle right before my eyes, ok my binoculars. After about 3 minutes of combat, pushing and twisting with locked horns, the large guy gave up the fight and took off on a dead run away from his group of does. The victorious buck was in fast pursuit, chasing the large buck out of sight. I have never before seen such a battle in real life, only on the hunting videos that pass the endless winter hours of no hunting. It was an incredible sight to see such majestic animals engaged in a struggle for dominance in the area. All I can say is, “If only I had my video camera.” Sorry I will carry my camera in the future, hopefully they will be at it again tomorrow.

J_Dub1