Bison Watering Hole - Grasslands National Park, Canada

This camera overlooks a watering hole on the open prairie of Grasslands National Park near Val Marie, Saskatchewan, where plains bison come to drink and wallow. The surrounding shortgrass runs flat to the horizon, and dust rising from a bison rolling in a wallow is one of the more common sights on the feed.

Grasslands is one of the few places in Canada where plains bison range freely across native prairie. The herd was reintroduced in 2005 after an absence of more than a century, and the park protects one of the last large tracts of unploughed mixed-grass prairie left in North America. Pronghorn, coyotes, burrowing owls and black-tailed prairie dogs share the same landscape.

The plains bison is one of two North American subspecies, alongside the smaller wood bison. It is the continent's largest land mammal, reaching 2.1 to 3.5 metres from head to rump and weighing between 422 and 998 kilograms. Despite that bulk they are fast, capable of running at up to 65 kilometres per hour.

Did You Know? Bison wallows, the dust bowls seen on this camera, reshape the prairie itself. The compacted hollows collect rainwater and support plant communities found nowhere else on the grassland, and some wallows on the northern plains are still visible more than a century after the herds that made them were wiped out.

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