#bison!

[wileycap]

I don't think I've seen anybody talk about how absolutely insane The Boiling Rock is from Hakoda's perspective.

Imagine getting captured, and your son tells you that you won't be apart for too long. That's sweet, but obviously your son has no resources to spare for organizing a breakout. You hope that the Avatar can defeat the Fire Lord soon - that's the earliest time you could hope to be rescued.

You get put into a temporary holding facility until the guards can sort out who is who. After a while, they put you on a prisoner transport to the Boiling Rock. Your captors try to intimidate you by telling you that it's the highest security prison in the Fire Nation, probably the whole world. It's far away from the capital.

You arrive at the Boiling Rock. It really is in the middle of a boiling lake. There's only one way in or out, and it's a gondola that takes you above the boiling lake. You meet the warden. They take you to your cell. You settle down to wait for the end of the war.

And 15 minutes later Sokka comes in like "hey dad I'm here I got the prince of the Fire Nation and an Earth Kingdom ninja leader gf ok let's go I'm busting you out"

[bovineblogger]

BIG SILLY?

[jwood719]

Bison on the restored prairie, with a Contemporary America shot included: Buried Fiber Optic Cable and (presumbed) Bull.

Kankakee Sands Bison: an unseasonably warm Sunday prompts a drive to see if the buffalo could be seen--and they could!

Strung out in a raggedy, quarter-mile long line, the bison were cropping the grass at the south end of the pasture.

No-where near the official viewing area.

R. Jake Wood, 2024.

The Nature Conservancy: Kankakee Sands.

Fuel for your plains dugout!

[rockandroar]

Outta the way! The kings of Metal are charging in! 🤘🏼Meet Steel Stampede, fronted by the legendary Grant Ruffalo. In the world of Rock & Roar, heavy metal music was originated by, and belongs to, animals with horns, and that’s the origin of the “🤘🏼” hand symbol. The last image is a drawing of Grant from all the way back in 2013. Miles will meet these guys in chapter 4!

[vintagewildlife]

American bison By: Unknown photographer From: Wildlife Fact-File 1990s

[the-cricket-chirps]

Bison From Cave Of Altamira, Santander, Spain, ca. 10,000 B.C, with artist’s interpretation.

[expressions-of-nature]

by Jami Bollschweiler

[monochromegee]

Buried a friend.

@noshirdalal

[riverwindphotography]

Two bull Bison graze happily on fresh grasses

(c) gif by riverwindphotography, April 2024

[draconicdeityarts]

Mother’s love

[bovineblogger]

LEAPS N BOUNDS!!!!

[constantlyfalling]

Yellowstone Winter 2023

[ruhigrose]

Sleepy Sky Bison babies :)

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Very, very fresh bison calf.

Months and months ago I promised y'all photos of the bison birth I was lucky enough to observe at the Cleveland Zoo last spring. As requested, they'll be under a cut, because unlike this lovely photo from the zoo announcement post, my photos are... goopy.

His name is Tighee, a name which the zoo said is "the name of a Shoshone chief."

We walked up just as things started to get going, and the story is below the cut...

This is Blue, a female bison who arrived at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in fall of 2022 already pregnant. When we got to the habitat, there were a ton of people gathered around, and it wasn't quite clear what was going on.

Then we noticed her full udder and the extra pair of feet.

She was dead-center in the (pretty large) habitat, which was nice - though there was a crowd, she had some good distance from everyone for most of it. The calf came pretty quickly, all things considered (something especially helpful when you're holding a heavy camera up on full manual zoom without a tripod). Because she was at a distance, my friend and I spent a bunch of time showing people near us photos on my camera screen so they could get a good view.

I was honestly really surprised at the number of people who asked why the zoo staff weren't in there with her, helping her give birth. So we explained to folk that zoo staff don't normally go in with bison on a normal day because they're so big and dangerous, and that during a birth (a time of potential stress for the whole herd, the rest of whom were off to the side of that habitat) it would be especially risky to do so. But you could see people in the zoo's uniform colors clustered around the fence, keeping a close eye on her.

And then there was a calf! For folk who haven't seen what a whole amniotic sac looks like, I'm including the next couple photos.

This one is still mid-birth, as you can see. The hooves come out first, with the calf's head laying parallel to them.

Blue immediately moves to break the amniotic sac and clear the calf's airways of mucus. Om nom nom.

We have open eyes and an awake baby! The amniotic sac is full of fluid that helps protect the baby while it's in the uterus, which means once it's broken, the baby is goopy. One of mom's first jobs is to lick all of it away to dry the calf off.

A first attempt at using legs!

Nope, being born was too hard and legs don't work yet. Time to rest and recover from the effort of thinking about standing up.

The first inquisitive member of the herd, another young female, comes to check out the newest addition.

More attempts at legs! Getting better but still not coordinated enough yet.

They're starting to help the baby stand up. In a non-captive setting it would be important for him to be able to walk pretty quickly after being born, and he has to stand up to be able to nurse!

Everyone comes to check him out, now.

We have legs! They work! He hadn't quite figured out where to nurse from yet, though.

And that's your bison birth for the day!

[bisonamericanus]

by Drew Dau