Weaving the Landscape with Buffalo

Did you know that right here in central Iowa we have a National Wildlife Refuge? If you live in central Iowa and haven’t been out to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City is it a trip I highly recommend. It may be a bit more pleasant when the weather is nicer if you like walking the trails but I like seeing the buffalo in the snow and I had a picture to take. My family and I drove out to see if we could find any buffalo. There is an auto tour that is pretty well maintained. In addition to buffalo, the wildlife refuge also has a herd of elk. There is also a very nice learning center that is free to the public. It is a great place to take kids. They also have activities throughout the year. You can check it out here - http://www.tallgrass.org/

We saw a few elk on our trip around the refuge but we hit the jackpot with the herd of buffalo. We saw 2 groups of buffalo that were separated by a hill. Each group had between 20 and 25 buffalo. We saw them butt heads and dig in the snow.



I took several pictures of the buffalo herds. Since it was snowy and an overcast day the picture is kind of gray. In fact while I was editing the picture I turned it black and white and you couldn’t tell much of a difference. I played around with some different techniques and found the weave texture, which I think, works for this picture. I like how it adds interest to the picture while keeping the buffalo as a focus of the picture.