Wintertime: Snow, moose, and mountain lions

Yesterday, I told you that Shyla and I saw a moose cow-calf pair near the end of our ride. Fortunately, Shyla was very mellow when we finally saw them because she'd been playing in the snow non-stop for a while.

And, just before we saw the moose, we'd been practicing some of her tricks so her focus was completely on me.

Just after we'd been playing the "wave" game, we saw the moose pair sprint across our path and up a hill.

They disappeared over a ridge, and we changed our route to stay away from where I guessed that they'd gone.

But, after I dropped Shyla off at home, I saw them again. They were in the midst of a very dense aspen grove, eating the tender shoots and buds from the trees. I kept a long distance away but I had my super wildlife lens with me.

The calf was easier to photograph than his mom, who was even deeper in the aspen grove than the calf. Here's the calf eating an aspen shoot.

The calf voraciously ate every bud and twig he could reach. I believe the calf was a male based on his antler buds. He was a much smaller calf than the one I saw a little while ago. He was about half of his mother's size.

After a couple of photos from a long distance, I departed. Believe me, I have a healthy respect for the anger of a mother moose, and I never want to see it again.

But, contrary to my plans, I saw the pair again on my way home. This time, they were both lying down in the snow.

Again, the calf was a little easier to see than his mom.

He glanced at me but never moved.

Mom never even turned her head toward me although, as you can see in the next photo, she was listening for me. Her ears were rotated in my direction.

Both of her ears had perfect points, unlike the mother moose who charged me three weeks ago. Thus, I feel certain that this was a different mother-calf pair than the one that I saw before. It blows my mind that we have TWO moose pairs near our trails when none have ever lived here before. They've passed through our area, and my trail cameras have captured their images. However, they haven't stayed around until this winter.

Probably part of the reason for the moose population explosion is that they have very few predators in our area. North of us, wolves are the primary predators of moose. We don't have wolves here, and I doubt that people would ever accept a reintroduction of wolves.

Mountain lions occasionally kill and eat moose. The articles I've read say that it's mainly the big male mountain lions who will take down a moose. We've had a female mountain lion in our neck of the woods consistently for a while now. I wonder if she's been near the moose.

She is quite small compared to a moose. In these photos, she's passing the same trail camera as a young male moose passed last September so you can get a direct comparison.

Based on the size difference, I cannot visualize her taking down an adult moose. However, if she could fend off the mother moose, I bet that she could take down that smaller calf that I saw yesterday.

Amazingly, I am more afraid of moose than I am of mountain lions! I'm sure that's simply because I'm used to sharing the forest with the lions but I am not used to moose yet.

It will be interesting to see how long the moose stay around. I suspect that they'll move up higher as our world thaws out this spring but only time will tell.