Summer Saturday!!!

Today is a glorious summer day - with sunshine and flowers.

My trail camera showed some of our young wildlife moving around. The next photo is the yearling moose calf who has acted as if he's been confused for the past few weeks. I could put together an entire video showing his travels. He keeps walking east for miles and miles. Then, for some reason, he makes a U-turn and comes right back to where his mom raised him last winter.

I will make that video sometime soon. It's so cool to have this guy in our forest. He's been staying well hidden from people. And, when I've glimpsed him, he quickly runs into the cover of the forest. He should move on at some point - finding his own territory. However, I'm starting to wonder if all the attractive moose territory near us is already taken by other moose.

Here was another young animal who came out of hiding the other day. Look how small that fawn is.

The fawn sniffed around the area, probably smelling some other animals, like moose and mountain lions, for the first time in his short life.

I adore this time of year - seeing the young animals who are so cute, and enjoying Nature's beauty which almost overwhelms me.

Happy Summer Saturday!

Moose on the Loose

I haven't talked about moose in our forest very much recently, although they've still been in the vicinity. A couple of weeks ago, Shyla and I saw a young bull moose, all by himself. Shyla did a sit-stay next to me, and I snapped a photo as he disappeared into the forest.

I'd heard that others had been seeing new moose calves all over our area so I guessed that this was last year's calf who had been hanging out in our forest for the winter. I suspected that his mother had split from him to have a new calf.

Here are a couple of photos of him with his mother last winter. He was the closer of the two moose in the photo.

He and his mom usually foraged right next to each other.

I saw them together, one last time, near the end of the winter. You can see the calf's antler buds just above his eyes.

Then, I didn't see any moose for a while, until a trail camera picked up photos of a young male moose by himself. He sniffed the ground in front of the camera. It's a spot that mountain lions have marked many times.

He was so engrossed in the scent that he knelt down to smell it better. You can see his velvet antler buds in both photos.

He spent a few minutes in front of that trail camera before going on his way, probably starting the process of finding his own home range, away from his mom.

Then, I heard from my neighbor that she'd seen a baby moose with a mother moose just outside her house. This is her photo, that she kindly gave me permission to share with you.

You can see in that photo how protective the mother moose looked. To be honest, seeing this scared me. I was worried about meeting this pair on the trails while I rode with Shyla. It finally happened the other day. Fortunately, they weren't right on the trail but about 30 yards off of it.

I spotted them, hopped off my bike, and told Shyla to do a "sit-stay". It was one of those moments as a dog guardian that I was SO thankful that I spend so much time training Shyla. She did exactly as I asked. I leashed her. I snapped a quick photo, and then we moved further away from the pair, giving them an extremely wide berth.

It was during that encounter that I captured the photo that I showed you yesterday.

It was incredible to get to see the pair, although I hope that it doesn't happen too often. Moose scare me more than any other animals in our forest.

It was also one of those moments that I realized that Shyla has become a true partner with me. We can do amazingly fun stuff together, and I can trust her to follow my instructions. In this case, our safety was on the line, and she passed the test with flying colors!

Every single day, we practice "stays", "recalls", and other basic trail safety cues. Indeed, I take many of the photos that I show here while we practice. For photos, I often put Shyla in a "stay" and then I either call her to me or direct her to run to some other target.

All that practice has been worth it - especially if it means that we can peacefully coexist with the potentially dangerous wildlife in our forests! And, our shared experience with the moose further strengthened our bond. I love Shyla more and more every day.

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.

Moose on the Loose

My dogs and I spend time every day out on the trails. I've talked about all the training we do to prepare them to be good citizens around wildlife. We are usually out around sunrise and sunset, times of ample wildlife activity.

Shyla is usually my sole sunrise companion. I'm so glad that she is willing to focus on me when there are so many animals roaming our forest.

Our evening walks usually include both dogs together. Unfortunately, I've missed many evening walks lately due to my "cluster migraines", and so I've had little opportunity to be on the trails with R. Yesterday evening, I was able to hike with him and Shyla! R is an intense dog, as you can see in his face in this photo. I am always on my toes when he is off-leash to make sure that some of his focus is on me.

Shyla behaves differently around him. She's more willing to be wild when she has R by her side. So, when both leashes are off, I'm really on my toes!

We have a relatively new wildlife species in our forest that the dogs could potentially see - moose! A few breeding pairs were introduced on the other side of the Continental Divide 35 years ago - and it took a long time for them to become inhabitants of our side of the Divide. When I say "introduced", I mean that they were never an established species in this area before wildlife officials released some in the mountains. It surprises me that they "introduced" a non-native species because we've learned so much about how the proliferation of a new species can change an entire ecosystem. Apparently, the primary reason for it was to promote tourism because people like seeing moose.

I am one of those people who loves moose. The other day, a mother and her calf visited our neck of the woods, lying in willow thickets. Here was mom. She seemed completely unconcerned with me. The dogs were not with me (Mother Moose might have been concerned if they were).

Here was Junior. He stayed further away and more hidden in the willows than his mother.

I didn't have a good line of sight to see either of their faces. I had to stand patiently and wait for them to glance my way before clicking the shutter. Mom sneaked a peek first.

She mostly seemed to "listen" for me, with at least one ear rotated my way the whole time.

When Junior finally turned his head, I found out that he was a male. You can see the bud of an antler just above his eye.

I know that moose can be dangerous so I kept my distance. These photos were all taken with a long lens. When I departed, both moose were still bedded down in the snow, perfectly content to relax on the freezing surface and ignore me. This was my last view of Junior.

I hope to see them again but I must admit some trepidation about my dogs encountering a moose during a hike in the forest. I understand that moose can kill dogs, and it does happen in Alaska when sled dog teams are whooshing fast through the forest. From my trail cameras, I know that moose are rare in the vicinity of our house but they do occasionally trek nearby on their way to better habitat.

In any case, I was thrilled to see the moose the other day. What a treat!