See the glamorous night life of Custer State Park in Blur-o-Vision (patent pending)!

Kate and John sat through an hour long park presentation about nocturnal animals. It was definitely geared towards kids, and the yammering and squalling kids made it hard to hear the presentation. Mostly, we learned that the presenter was not very knowledgeable. She did not know if the park had (m)any of the animals she spoke about or where to find them. Well, she had pretty vague things, like Burrowing Owls and Black-footed Ferrets should be near Prairie Dog towns. How many Mountain Lions are there in the park? Uh, um. they have big ranges … probably not a lot.

We left about 9 pm and drove the wild life loop down to the Wildlife Visitor Center. When we saw an animal on the side of the road or eye-shine in the headlights, we stopped to look with a flashlight. Not surprisingly, the first thing we saw was White-tailed Deer. The deer was in the headlights, so the camera could auto-focus.

We also stopped when we almost ran over something. This little guy was sitting in the middle of the road. We thought it was road debris, but John got Kate to stop with the bumper over its head. We backed up about ten feet, and since it stayed there, we thought it must be hurt. John went out to photograph and investigate. (Cue Horror Movie Soundtrack.) He took a few photos with flash and without flash. When he tried to walk around to check the other side, it flew away. This little Common Nighthawk was just warming its buns on the pavement. Warm, yes. Safe, no.

In the daylight, it would be really well camouflaged by the pavement. We are surprised that we do not see more flat ones on the road. Interestingly, they are not actually hawks. The name is a misnomer because they swoop around catching bugs similar to hawks.

When we did not see anything in the headlights or nearly run over it, we stopped at various pull-offs and shined a flashlight out into the grass. That is how we saw a four point buck at the pond near the Meadowlark fence. At this point, it was getting dark enough that the auto-focus was not able to focus without the headlights. We will be better prepared for it next time, but this time, the photographs just get blurrier as the night progresses.

A little further on, Kate thought she saw something. It turned out to be a small herd of four Elk with four babies. John thought it was deer at first, but the big white butts gave them away. This stop is where we learned that we need a red light inside the car so that John can see to change camera settings.

We saw some eye-shine at several other places on the drive, but they were too far away to see what it was or illuminate it with the camera flash. All of the eye-shine was yellow-green, so we think everything was deer or elk. On the drive back, we saw one last group of deer, but we never got good focus on any of them. This picture was taken blind because the viewfinder was completely black; it was just a guess at where the deer was based on the flashlight direction.

Also, the flashlight battery ran out. We will try again later and be better prepared.