A Moose Meeting

Today, we met a trio of moose. A mother moose, a young male calf, and a youngish adult male with asymmetrical antlers. He disappeared into the forest fast so I didn't get a photo of him.

The mother and her male calf didn't disappear so fast. We came up pretty close before I saw them. I hopped off my bike and started backing away. Fortunately, Shyla has trained herself to be amazing around moose, She stayed behind me, backing up in tandem with me.

When we'd gotten far enough away, the mother moose stopped giving me her stern and angry look so I lingered to watch for a bit. The mother resumed eating aspen twigs so I pulled out my point-and-shoot (that has 40X zoom) to take a few photos. It doesn't take great quality photos but it's perfect for when I see animals from far away on bike rides.

She's a beautiful animal with her typical moose goofiness.

She reached up high to chomp on some aspen twigs.

Then she brought her head back down to chew them.

Twigs must be tough to eat because she chewed for a long time. It is so hard for me to imagine that a huge animal like a moose can survive by eating tree bark and twigs all winter long. Yet, that's all that I see them eat.

Then her calf emerged from behind the brush. You can see his antler bud above his eye. He was obsessed with chewing on one spot on his side.


He then mimicked mom by eating the lower aspen twigs.

Then, he and his mom walked into the denser forest with nary a look in our direction. Shyla and I still respectfully made a large detour around where they'd gone before continuing on our way.

Even though I tend to think that it wasn't wise for our state to introduce moose to the area, I still enjoy every sighting. They are cool animals when they're feeling docile!

After that great luck, I ran into bad luck with my health later in the day. I'm heading to bed to nurse a migraine and a seized back.