December at Maxwell

We had unseasonably warm temperatures today and very little wind. And, it had been far too long since I had taken any photos, so an hour before sunset we headed off to Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, adjacent to (east of)  the McPherson State Fishing Lake.

Anyway, it was a nice drive down, and we saw large herds of elk and buffalo (technically, bison) shortly after we entered the park.  I didn't get any photos of the herds, but I did manage to get a few good shots of a solo bull, just barely in the sun and only partially obscured by prairie grass.

Also, as we were approaching the western shore of the lake, I thought we passed my sister heading the other way.  We turned around and joined her and her family watching the sun set.  That was nice, an unexpected pleasure.

Below are my favorite shots of the day; a few more are visible in my Maxwell Dec 2010 Flickr set.

Maxwell Dec 2010: bison

Buffalo Bull

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Maxwell Dec 2010: sunset

The actual sunset wasn't all that much, but as is typical, a few minutes after sunset things started getting interesting.

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Maxwell Dec 2010: sunset

Sunset image created by setting the camera for a long exposure (at least 5 seconds) and then manually zooming.  It's tricky and the results were mixed, but I got a few good ones.

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