Like its musical namesake, all symphonies begin with an opening movement, and that is the same with the annual elk rut. With a nod, if you will, to cervus canadensis’ antlers, I have come to think of this symphony as one both written and conducted by Mother Nature in C-sharp for all of the world to enjoy and marvel at.

As is the case with the musical symphonies, so, too, is it with the elk. They are concertos that revolve around the bulls. No, like symphonies they intricately weave the various notes of the cows and calves in along with those of the elks’ version of the lead violin: the bulls. And as the maternal herds with their calves move across the landscape, the bulls jockey, display, call, rake, scent mark, and oftentimes battle for dominance and the hard-fought right and opportunity to breed, thus passing along the best genes to best ensure the fitness of the herd’s offspring for the rigors of the lives that they will lead when born the following May and June.

Innately knowing or sensing this, the cows are quite choosy about which bull they will breed with. Elk breeding, like that of so many species, is not egalitarian in the least, for there is too much riding on the genetic fusions between the cows D.N.A. and that of the bulls. Knowing this, they risk leisure, limb, and their very lives to fulfil their biological imperative.

The tableau set and the elk grouping underway as of late August, the annual symphony in C-sharp begins in earnest with its sonata. No two elk sound exactly alike, with several factors including size and age in particular shaping their chords, and their respective temperaments and priorities shaping the style and urgency of their notes, all of which come together across the score to create their seasonal soundscape, the sounds of them coming together to breed.

Throughout their amphitheater-like gathering areas, their notes and chords spill out across the land, each with its own purpose. The cows and calves lead off with their muted, familiar chirps and mews, the short-duration, high-pitched chirps casual to signal their physical movements and the slowed down mews elongated and relaxed when they bed down or feed. The bulls share their own mews to the sonata for the same reasons, but they also add their casual bugles as if to say, “Here I am and I’m up and about”. As the various chirps, mews, and locating bugles are interwoven freely, the occasional caesura will sometimes be broken by an elk’s bark, either of alarm or of nervous curiosity, depending upon what they hear, smell, see, or otherwise sense. Squeals, too, of excited spikes ring out their variable and higher pitched, adding them to the melody and texture of the moments. And when nothing is amiss or imminently threatening, the opening sonata gives way to the symphony’s second movement.

For viewers and admirers like me, this second is a slower, quieter movement, the musical equivalent of lento and largo tempos, piano and even pianissimo tempos, slow, stately, and even quite quiet at times. The elk are unhurried in their physical movements as they are with their vocalizations. Chuckling bulls call out to the cows, deeply, slowly, guttural in their desire for acceptance.

But these seeming decrescendos can only last so long as the relentless beat of metronomic time marches on, their biological clocks requiring more attention as the days go on. As the elks’ pheromones kick into synchronized overdrive due to this seasonal grouping, some of the older cows will enter an estrus cycle, which, in turn, sends its irresistible chemical signal straight to the bulls’ brains via their olfactory systems as they take it all in while shadowing the various cows.

Thus begins the scherzo portion of the elks’ symphony. The changed rhythm and variety of their vocalizations punctuate the air, now quavering out further across the expanses of sagebrush with increasing urgency. Andante gives way to adagio, allegro, and even forte as the pace quickens. To their previous chirps and mews, cows add bugling of their own, along with excited estrus calls that rise and fall, the whining sounds of the excited herd approaching its mating frenzy, all interspersed with various growls and grunts throughout. Invisible baton in hand, Mother Nature exhorts tutti to join in and so the bulls do so, but now, instead of locating bugling, the larger bulls offer their display bugles in their attempts to exhibit their worthiness to the cows. And just as the symphonic portion of the rut builds to forte, the elks’ physical movements become increasingly energized, sometimes almost playful but at other times turbulent and even fierce. Beware, humans, for Mother Nature does not include you in its call for tutti. While tempting and even illogically enticing like so many sirens’ calls from across the mythological deep, the invitations are for elk only, and humans who get too close do so at their own very real peril in this time of greatly heightened, hormonally-driven elk behavior.

The finale, as one would expect, is grander still. Its faster, rondo form keep both the players and audience rapt as the behaviors unfold in a panoply of signalling, rutting, chasing, and even battling, the elk harems and the breeding rights to them always at stake. Be it shrouded in morning mist, bathed in the brilliant light of a clement, sunny day, or blurred by autumnal rains or an ominous gray front, the elk orchestra plays on to its inevitable biological and seasonal conclusion. The cows’ chords change only in urgency and frequency in this last symphonic movement, but the bulls add screaming bugle calls to the score at its moments of crescendos. They raise their intensity to challenge other bulls nearby and rake bystanding trees, bushes, and deadfallen branches with their now velvetless antlers, sharpening them for the climactic combats ahead. Risking wearing themselves out, the bulls run to and fro at the slightest provocations or risk of losing a cow to the entreaties of other, proximate bulls. The ultimate reward of finally breeding and thus fulfilling their hoped-for biological destiny at hand, the bulls leave no challenge or even potential challenge unanswered, so much so that they forego most or even all of their nutritional needs. So laser focused on the twin needs of breeding and jealously herding and protecting their respective harems, they dig deeper into their energy and fat reserves, depleting themselves further with each mouthful of pre-winter grass not taken to ensure maximum vigilance.

Copulation itself is necessarily brief and efficient, both climactic biologically and anticlimactic at the same time as they quickly go their separate ways. The cows go back to the comfort and safety of their maternal herds, feeding and fattening up for both the winter ahead and for the biological requirements of the soon-to-be developing embryos inside of them, the bulls back to the next challenge or breeding opportunity, the rondos cycle on, almost frenetically in their pace and urgency. And so it plays out until each cow has been bred or until no more cows cycle into estrus, the breeding bulls fatigue beyond good health and the cows and calves moving on to the other, figurative pastures of their seasonal lives. The seasonal breeding curtain comes down with finality until the next year and the stages are cleared for autumn to give further way to the oncoming winter. The trees still carry much of their autumnal splendor, but the orchestral accompaniment is much reduced to its more normal chirps, mews, and occasional barks.

Thus completes the cycle of the September elk symphony, easing into October and beyond the precious cargo of the next spring’s elk calves inside the now-pregnant cows and growing steadily until their eventual introduction into the world the following May and June. Mother Nature lowers that particular baton for the last time in that orchestra, only to pick up one of her many other batons to guide one or more of the seemingly numberless other symphonies over which she presides, one seasonal cycle leading to another in the relentless march of time. Players and notes change, but Mother Nature’s many beats go on, marking the continuity and variety of the soundscape through the seasons. There are no bows or curtain calls, just other melodies and sights to mark the passage of time, more experiences, and more memories as they play out inexorably across time and space for us to learn from, enjoy, and wonder at in their beauty, harmony, and never-ending symphonic synchronicity.

 

by Christian Beall, Yellowstone Forever Institute Field Educator