My son, Jason, and I had finished a day hike in Zion National Park a few weeks ago and were on our way over to Bryce Canyon National Park as part of a weekend road trip we had planned when Jason spotted a small herd of Desert Bighorn Sheep grazing on sagebrush, junipers, and sparse grass patches along a sandstone slope. We encountered the mix young rams, a few ewes, and lambs on the east side of the park shortly after we exited the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel. That tunnel, by the way, was constructed in the late 1920's to give direct access to Bryce Canyon NP from Zion NP. When it was originally constructed it was the longest tunnel of its type in the United States.
We parked our truck upon seeing the herd and joined a few other park visitors who watched, recorded, and photographed the sheep as they lazily grazed from one food source to another. The tallest of these sheep stood about 4 feet if measured to the tops of their heads. They seemed noticeably smaller than the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep I'd observed in northern parts of Utah.
One of these days I'll have to go back down to Zion when the sheep are rutting so I can capture some action photos of the big boys ramming heads to impress the girls. This little herd was quite calm during our observation. No one ram was trying to dominate another.
Traffic slow downs are not always a bad deal. Take yesterday afternoon for example. I was driving down the two lane road of American Fork Canyon in Utah County, Utah when traffic suddenly began to slow. Slowing transitioned to a complete stop and a realization that the hold up was courtesy of a ewe Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep and her lamb. Both were lazily moving along the road at the base of a rocky hillside. While I have seen bighorn sheep in other areas of Utah, this was only my second, and best, encounter with this species in all the years I've been driving up and down American Fork Canyon. The first time I encountered them was about a year ago as a few of them were running up a tree-covered hillside. Perhaps these are signs that we'll see them more often in the future.
Thanks to a habit I have of taking my camera gear along when I head into the mountains I was able to pull off to a shoulder and capture some images of the ewe and her lamb.
The lamb eventually made its way to a resting spot about 20 yards up the hillside. The ewe remained by the road where she began to forage on available vegetation. The ewe eventually moved up the hillside to forage closer to her lamb. The lamb moved down the hillside to meet her.
The ewe was definitely aware that I and others were watching her and her lamb. I knew because she would periodically stare in our direction. However, she would soon return to foraging. I don't know their behavior all that well, but I suspected that she would not hesitate to protect her little lamb so I stayed on the far side of the road to avoid the possibility of
I would have enjoyed seeing a ram with his "big" curved horns yesterday, but those guys don't stick around after breeding. They separate from the ewes after mating and leave the ewes to tend to their individual lambs. The big boys show up to clash horns and "ram" their way up a dominance hierarchy just before and during the rut, or mating season. The gestation period for bighorns is about six months. Rocky Mountain bighorns are larger than other bighorns. The rams stand about 4 tall and can weigh from 200 to more than 400 pounds. The ewes are a few inches shorter and weigh around 200 pounds, give or take depending upon their health. The horns of a ram can weigh up to 30 pounds, which I've read is about the equivalent of the weight of the rest of the bones in the ram's body.
Here's a phone video I captured when I first came upon the ewe and the lamb yesterday.
