They started early in the morning. Phone calls from hunters, most nonresidents, with questions about the areas they have drawn to hunt this fall.

"Where are the big bucks?"

Almost always get that question. Hate it. Killing a grand animal is supposed to be a mark of a hunter's skill. Or perhaps, the wondrous serendipity of mother nature. Nothing like having an amateur stumble on a trophy animal to put the ego hunters in their place. Yes, skill, experience and doing your homework is important, and desirable.

But it's nice to know luck can occassionally overwhelm all those things.

Actually, only one of today's callers was asking that question. Others were quite properly doing their homework. How do they get access, and which ranchers should they call? Which roads in are the best? Where can they get their game hung and cooled after the hunt? What are the regulations on camping? Do I need an ATV? (This answer was 'No".)

All good questions, and ones I am pleased to be able to answer. And grateful the hunters are getting things lined out well in advance (as opposed to the night before opening day, which I have had). But geez, there were a bunch today. Like everyone has free long distance on Tuesdays.

So, the reports that absolutely had to be done today weren't done until the afternoon. And the truck was vacuumed of a spring and summer's worth of dust and debris, and all the emergency gear, food, sleeping bags and coats were stowed away again. Filling the back seat to the headrests (having been removed for almost a week so the radio tech could yank out, repair, and then replace the state radio).

By 16:52, there was nothing else that had to be done today.

Several tasks that should, but none that couldn't wait one more day.

At 17:15 the heeler sisters and I hit the road. Off to start a month of antelope classifications. The first of 20-some days of field work, almost all on the dirt roads.

Oh joy!

The sisters were incredibly hyper... whining and shivering (yes, shivering) in anticipation. For more than 25 miles.

This...

is where they finally got their first drag race of the evening. And yes, that's the Continental Divide up there at the top of that hill.

Wasted a bunch of minutes trying to get through the first gate. Trying the combination the ranch manager gave me that afternoon, and every combination they've used for the past four years. Even tried devining the four digit combination, starting with 0-0-0-0 and going up by ones (Don't laugh, I've done that before. Successfully.)

After the first hundred or so, suddenly remembered the manager mentioning a second number. Scribbled on the phone pad note. Still in my pocket.

And we were off.

Came across antelope almost immediately. Sorting tallies of each group into does, fawns, adult bucks and yearling bucks. And, new this year, trying to sort the fawns into males and females, based upon the tiny black cheek patches on the males. This a request by the group in our outfit designated to coordinate pronghorn management and research. (The question here being... are fawns born at 50:50 ratios as we assume? Or is there a slight difference, as with humans and other mammal species?)

Two gates and a little over three miles further, the heelers and I made a short little diversion. To document yet another benchmark.

This one has been sitting here since 1937. And yes, the heelers (and the benchmark) are sitting exactly on the Continental Divide.

Which runs to and along the crest of the mountains in the background.

Spent over twenty minutes parked here.

Trying to classify at least seven different herds of pronghorn feeding peacefully down in the meadows below. (And yes, that's the Continental Divide on top of that ridge in the back.)

Was squinting and concentrating through the spotting scope affixed to my window when I heard a loud hum.

Knew immediately what it was, of course. Hard to mistake the whirr of hummingbird wings, once you've heard it. And I could see it, just in the edge of my peripheral vision. Hovering about 20cm from the scope, my face and my left hand. Apparently trying to figure out its reflection in the window.

As it buzzed away briefly, I had time to grab the camera, and then had to freeze as the hummer stormed my window again, flaring his tail into a broad fan to brake at the last moment.

And then was gone, weaving right down that road, over the crest of the hill, out of sight.

The sun was getting low as we slipped across the Divide, at this point a sagebrush flat, back into the Atlantic basin.

Hurried to classify several more groups of antelope in this drainage, lined on two sides with aspen groves.

Thirteen minutes before sunset, and only a couple miles from the end of our route, we startled a small herd of elk, who grudgingly sidled up into their aspens and out of sight.

(And yes, the Continental Divide is on top of the ridge where those trees are.)

We finished our route one minute before official sunset, but the sun's rays had actually been gone for almost twenty minutes, and light was fading fast. By the time we got to the main county road, only the highest tips of the clouds were still glowing.

And we began the hour-long drive home.