Last week I visited the Oak Creek Wildlife Area near Yakima, Washington–a great winter-time place to observe and photograph Elk and Bighorn Sheep. There is a winter feeding program for both animals, and a volunteer told me that the Elk herd that is fed this year is almost 1700 animals! The Elk are fed at 1:30 PM each day, and it’s an unbelievable site to watch this huge herd coming down out of the hills to the feeding area as feeding time approaches.  You can also take a tour of the feeding area in an open truck, which gets you very close to the Elk.

There is a Bighorn Sheep feeding area only a few miles from the Elk feeding area.  The sheep are fed every morning at 9:30, but when we stopped at their feeding area around 2:00 in the afternoon, there were still around 50 Bighorn Sheep at the sheep feeding area even though their breakfast appeared to be long gone.