Botanical Glossary - Home

After finishing up a short photo shoot at the Painted Chasm Park we continued south along Chasm Road to join back up with highway 97 just north of Clinton. An opportunity to photograph a female Bighorn Sheep beside the road occurred. I grabbed the closest camera with the 400 mm lens and commenced to focus on the young sheep. Upon close scrutiny we noticed the animal had patches of molting fur, making it look rather scruffy. It quietly crossed over from the rail tracks beside the road, then slowly ambled in front of the motorvehicle to the opposite side of the road. It easily hopped the barb wire fence and stood at a safe distance watching us watching her.

The Bighorn sheep is large, brown in color, with a belly patch, inside legs an rump a cream white color. Ears are small, pointed and hairy: tail short and dark brown; horns of young males and females curve upward and back: as the male increases of age, the horns point downward, and upward in a spiral. Older Males will sometimes break off the tips of the horn against rocks when the horn curls far enough forward to partially obscure its peripheral view.

The sheep is primarily a grazing animal concentrating on grasses and young dwarf willow leaves in mountain ranges; emergency browsing consists of coniferous leaves and young twigs but only when more desirable feed is scarce. Maximum age of adult sheep usually doesn't exceed 14 years.