Follow Andy Martin, Field Recordist and others on SoundCloud.
ROOSEVELT ELK - Olympic National Park's "Rainforest Elk" are the largest surviving species of elk in North America, endemic to the Olympic Peninsula but found up and down the Pacific Northwest coastal regions.
Recorded in the Queets and Quinalt Rainforest River Valleys, there's often an unavoidable distant wash of river in the background, so each example is very lightly processed with the unprocessed source immediately following.
I record elk by leaving recorders out in the field where herds are known to migrate. Occasionally I'm able to follow a herd and record more direct, but I do not want to alarm the herd or stress them unnecessarily, so I often avoid this method.
Bugles are multi-toned calls that start low and transition into a scream. During the rut season, Bulls use this to express dominance over other males, warding off potential rivals, and attract potential mates. Outside of the rut they will often bugle when leading a herd.
Chuckles, or laughs, sound just like that, a series of short loud grunts. Like bugles, chuckles are used as a form of dominance and attraction call. I've often heard them used when a bull is specifically calling his harem to gather. They'll produce chuckles on their own, or sometimes tag them onto the end of a bugle.
PHOTO CREDIT: "Roosevelt Elk Bugling-Unknown" by Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0. To view the terms, visit creativecommons.org/publicdomain/ma…/?ref=openverse.
