<table> </table> CUSTER STATE PARK, S.D. | Lesson No. 1: Don&#8217;t tailgate.</p><p>If the driver ahead of you hits the brakes or suddenly pulls over and parks on the shoulder, he probably has seen something that you&#8217;ll want to see, too. A pronghorn maybe. A wild burro and her colt, perhaps. A buffalo wallowing in the dirt.</p><p>Custer State Park, a 71,000-acre gem in the Black Hills of South Dakota, is a wildlife lover&#8217;s paradise, to be sure. Around every bend, something unexpected.</p><p>I was driving toward a visitor center on a fine June afternoon, anticipating a hike, when I saw a tour bus parked on the highway, along with a couple of cars. I pulled over and got out.</p><p>A few yards away a half dozen or so bighorn sheep had ambled down the mountainside and were wandering among the pine trees, ignoring the clicking of camera shutters. Two buff-colored rams lay in the high grass, as if they were posing.</p><p>I pulled out my camera and focused, tempted to get just a few feet closer.</p><p>Which leads us to Lesson No. 2: Respect the buffalo.</p><p>&#8220;Excuse me, you need to go back the other way. EXCUSE ME!&#8221; park naturalist Lydia Poppen yelled out to a small group of park visitors. They were inching closer and closer to one of the shaggy beasts that apparently had decided to spend the afternoon lolling among cabins near the State Game Lodge.</p><p>&#8220;You need to get away from the buffalo now!&#8221; Poppen called again. But one stubborn man remained. He took another step toward the animal, focused his camera and clicked. Fortunately the buffalo couldn&#8217;t have cared less.</p><p>Buffalo are the star attraction at Custer State Park, but they&#8217;re no joke. They&#8217;re huge &#8212; 2,000 pounds or more at adulthood &#8212; surprisingly agile and, when they want to be, fast. A buffalo can run 35 miles an hour. Bet you can&#8217;t.</p><p>They also seem to be everywhere &#8212; grazing in the rolling hillsides along the Wildlife Loop Road, meandering along and sometimes in the roads, camped out near the campgrounds. The state park counts about 1,300 buffalo in its herd this year.</p><p>I was hoping to see every one of them.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Bison bonanza</span></strong></p><p>It was a wet spring in the Black Hills, a cause of celebration in this part of South Dakota, which has endured several years of drought. In fact, the biggest topic of conversation in June seemed to be whether the drought was truly over. Yes, said some. Maybe, others said, noting that without continued rainfall the region might easily return to dry conditions.</p><p>Inarguably the rolling hills of Custer State Park were an iridescent green &#8212; and a bonanza for the buffalo.</p><p>&#8220;The animals don&#8217;t really know what to do with all this tall grass,&#8221; said Kathy Funk, a driver for the park&#8217;s Buffalo Safari Jeep Rides. &#8220;But the babies really don&#8217;t know anything different.&#8221;</p><p>Funk&#8217;s soft-topped Jeep Wagoneer, loaded with five passengers, had just rounded the first corner of the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road early one morning when we spotted about eight pronghorns, a distant relative of the antelope, leaping through the meadows.</p><p>But where were the buffalo? Not far way.</p><p>You don&#8217;t need a guided tour to find wildlife at Custer, but the Jeep tour drivers keep in radio contact with one another and usually know which roads to take &#8212; and sometimes which roads to leave &#8212; for the best sightings.</p><p>We headed in pursuit along a gravel road called Oak Draw, then up Lame Johnny Road, named for a cattle rustler and horse thief, when we spotted the herd &#8212; hundreds of buffalo spread out among the fields, feeding, wading in shallow ponds, rolling in the dirt. And walking. Always walking.