Wapiti

My favourite wildlife shot taken in Banff. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

On my lunch I needed to make a delivery to the bus depot so I figured I'd walk over to the train station and get a shot of the train, but fortune had other plans. As I approached the train station a small group had formed around this Elk, I approached slowly and carefully and told the group not to stand so close. This one couple was close enough that if the Elk got angry he would just impale them on his MASSIVE antlers, I said "please guys step away from the Elk" and the girl turns around and says "It's not an Elk, it's a Moose, geeeeez!" All I could do was put my forehead to the palm of my hand and shake my head. "No Miss, it's an Elk." So she asks how do I know that, I tell her "I live here." She elbows her partner and says "It's an Elk silly."

They eventually dispersed and I kept a good distance, as well as put a large tree between the two of us just in case. Had my zoom lens and popped off a series of shots, the snow resting on the Elk made the shot, and I'm excited to potentially submit this to the gallery at work.