Elk of The West Coast

If you frequent the Oregon Coast, there is a very good chance you have seen elk. Typically in herds, grazing or migrating just off of the side of the highway or in town. They have even been seen on Cannon Beach, with the famous Haystack Rock behind them.. Now that would be a dream shot…

Recently, my goal has been to find and photograph elk in the wilderness, rather than from off of the highway. Not that photographs from the highway or in an urban environment are bad, I just would prefer to capture them in more of a natural state.

After doing some research, I have gotten one step closer to my goal. By using iNaturalist, I have found some areas that have the most concentrated sightings in recent months.

Below are photos that I took just off of the road, heading to the Northern Oregon Coast. Before encountering this herd, I just had a feeling I was going to spot elk on the drive out. And I found some quite quickly upon entering the area with a lot of sightings.

This herd had a mix of mothers, calves, young bulls (spikes) and more mature bulls. A very exciting encounter, and I spent a good half-hour just standing on the side of the road photographing these beautiful guys. Cars were driving by, not giving a hoot. They probably see elk everyday here, if they are locals. But for me, this was a cool moment.

This was only the beginning of my trip and was not the only encounter I had. Upon heading out North, I entered this long straight stretch of the road that leads you to the most North-Western end of Oregon. On this road, an opening from the forest appeared. A large section that revealed views of Astoria, the rugged mouth of the Columbia River and Saddle Mountain off in the distance.

Along this stretch, just before the end of this grand opening in the forest, there he was. A mature elk bull, a big boy, with a glorious set of antlers. He was grazing on the grasses just at the edge of the water and with the mountains of Washington in the distance. I quickly pulled my car off of the road as far as I could. There was no shoulder, so I straddled it part way into the ditch. I parked, grabbed my camera and tried to find the best line of sight for a good composition with the elk. At this point the elk was probably 200 yards out or so and he didn’t know I was there. I couldn’t quite get a good shot without distracting rocks in the background, but I did not want to move too far into the field and startle him. I got some okay shots here, below is one of the first shots.

Not great, but I like the photo. You can see him with a mouthful of grass and is giving me a pretty nice pose but the rocks just ruin it and I couldn’t get any lower of an angle to help separate them out.. Eventually, he began to move onward towards the field that ran between him and the road. As he started walking North, I quickly got up to follow, sneakily getting more shots of him from behind some shrubs and trees. I did not want to alert him and for him to move on from his grazing.

As he began to move, I was able to capture the two photos below, with slightly better backgrounds. Less rocks clipping the antlers and also the mountains of Washington appearing through the ocean mist. While I still am not totally happy with these photos because of the rocks, I am pretty proud to have captured these. I still believe they are photos deserving of being on my website at least (that’s not saying much).

After this incredible encounter with this mature elk bull, I set off to my destination, where I had no such luck again. I did not see any more elk for the rest of this day journey.

These photos were still all captured just off of roadways, so I still have not achieved my goal of getting photos of elk in the “wild,” although, these last three photos are pretty close.

I will continue to pursue my elk photo dreams. I guess you could consider this the first episode of my elk hunt. If you had made it this far.. thank you for reading! Stay tuned for the next attempt!

Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge, Washington