Moose on the Loose

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Two young fellows showed up in our back yard today. My 5D MK III was out in my studio, so my G1X II had to do the job. I needed a longer focal length, but had to do with a severe crop. I had one shot before they turned away and went out of easy range. His eyes were closed, as he was in the process of shaking snow off.

Wildlife is really hungry this year. We have started buying old bread from our local bread outlet to feed the deer, but we did not expect moose to show up. They also went out to our chicken house to cleanup any left over chicken food. Our chickens were locked in due to the snow.

Power has been out now since last Wednesday, we are running on our backup generator. My router was hosed by the power fluctuations, even though it was on a filter, so I'm on my backup router as well.

 

[Don Haines]

nice!

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

It turned out that the Moose had no intention of going away while there was food to be eaten. I have injuries to both feet, and could not wade thru 18 inch deep snow, so my wife used the G1X to tale some snap shots. The Moose wandered all around our back yard, behaving like tame animals and not afraid of her.

I cropped and processed them (Snow always comes out middle gray). None of the photos is prize winning, but interesting to see a moose around here, its something we only see every 3-5 years.

Here is a link to the photo gallery on Smugmug.

http://www.mount-spokane-photography.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumKey=SX7cfz

 

[lion rock]

Again it in not the gear you have, it is the gear you have in hand. Better to have a usable photo than not.
Hope you're recovering soon. I see in the news that the western part of the country has all sorts of bad weather, while we in the east is much too warm this time of the year.
Stay warm and recover fast.
You have a nice shot of the wild life.
-r

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Re: Moose on the Loose Back Again

The Moose have been coming back again. after watching them, we discovered that they were feeding on our trees and shrubs, and avoided any of the bread we put out for our chickens.

This morning, I had my 5D MK III in the house when they started eating the plum tree branches in our field. Then while I was developing the images (all were bad due to a fence being in the wayu), they wandered up to the house and started eating our climbing rose which is on the back deck.

My CF card was not in the camera, but my SD card (jpeg) was, so I snapped some shots. I was a bit disappointed in them, they just are not up to the quality I've been used to with raw images.

Here is a Moose portrait taken with my 5D MK III and 100-400mmL MK II. He was about 30 ft away. This is the younger Moose, the older one would not pose.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Mt Spokane.
Nice shot, I hope the plums and roses survive and perhaps get a little feed from the moose in return!

Cheers, Graham.
Ps plums and roses is not a rock band! ;D

 

[tpatana]

Moose seem to wade through snow quite easily:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEhM2Byk7w&t=1m40s

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Hi Mt Spokane.
Nice shot, I hope the plums and roses survive and perhaps get a little feed from the moose in return!

Cheers, Graham.
Ps plums and roses is not a rock band! ;D

We will call the game department Tuesday. There are very few Moose in Washington state, about 1000, so the Game Department may want to move them if they become a nuisance. Moose usually follow existing trails and do not like to walk thru deep snow simply because its more work, and food is scarce in the winter.

Food for wildlife was already dangerously low due to the drought this summer, and then the heavy snow made it worse.

We do not want to feed them because it encourages them to hang around. It would be better if the state relocated them and dropped off a bale of hay occasionally.

 

[rpt]

I liked your portrait of the moose. Could not see the album on smugmug as it wanted adobe flash player and Jobbs hated it so I can't see it on my iPad! I will check it out on my laptop later.

 

[rpt]

Moose seem to wade through snow quite easily:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEhM2Byk7w&t=1m40s

That was one loose moose!

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

They moved on to a neighbor about 1/2 mile away, so they are making the rounds looking for food. They do not look good, and may not survive if they can't find food.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

The Moose keep making the rounds of neighbors within a 5 mile range. They are twins and were born on a neighbors property a few miles away. They showed up today looking into my back window. My tiny dog slipped out the back door when I had grabbed my camera and stepped out onto the porch. They ran away from him, and I managed to get him back in. Then they came back.

I had my 70-200mm MK II on the camera and snapped a few photos. The snow caused a severe under exposure, I compensated by 1 stop, but it needed closer to 1-1/2 or 2 stops, so I had to pull up the photos.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Re: Moose on the Loose - Again

A little History that we have learned about our Local Moose. He and his sister were born in a neighbors field in the spring of 2015. The mother disappeared, so the brother and sister spent the winter fending for themselves. They made the rounds of the neighbors for several miles around foraging for food. They eat twigs and branches.

Tonight, the male was back, and eating branches from our plum trees, in our field about 300 ft from the house and two fences away. When he saw us come out on our back deck, he decided to leave. I had my 5D MK III with 100-400mm L, but it was far to short at that distance, and autofocus wanted to focus on the fence.

There was only a few seconds to take a few shots, and none were very good, but, you can see that he is growing antlers now.

It was about 7:15 PM local time, and a cool day, but even still, he walked between our bee hives and likely made them pretty angry. He had to go past them to get out, since he came into the field thru a gate, and we have 9 foot fences around it. He did not really want to do that, but finally braved it and went out.