Bull Moose Battle

This morning before daylight I headed into the mountains.  I saw a couple of deer and a cow and calf moose in the early morning mist and light snow.  Then I saw a big bull moose standing behind a rock.  It was way too early to get good pictures, but sometimes you have to take what you can do.

 

Next another bull showed up, but it only had one antler as the other one appeared to be broken off.

 

The two of them head toward the cow and calf.

 

The third bull was a small one that stayed away from the larger bulls.

 

A fourth showed up with very long eye-guards with smaller palms than the first bull that I saw.

 The three large bulls were walking down the ridge when the one with long eye-guards poked the one in front of it in the butt with it antlers.

 

The fight was on as the one with one antler acting as a referee - until it located me climbing the opposite ridge to get better pictures of the battle.

 

The rattling of antlers for about 20 minutes as the two big bulls battled each other.

 

I finally noticed that the one antlered bull was headed down the ridge toward me - with his tongue hanging out.  I quickly headed back to the truck, keeping it between me and the bull.  I must have been less threatening as I did not have any antlers.

 

I missed the most of the rest of the fight as I was too low to see them clearly.

 

To get rid of the one-antlered bull, I banged on the hood of the truck and all the bulls headed over the ridge. 

 

I don't know if any hooked up with the cow, but it was one of the most exciting times I have had in the Wilds of Idaho even with the poor light conditions.

Backyard visitors

This past week, my backyard has seen a lot of excitement and odd visitors.  So I do not have to go far to enjoy the wilds of Idaho.

First of all came the seed crackers.  The Red-breasted Nuthatch and the Brown creeper to join the flickers, chickadees and other wintering birds.

 

Saturday morning I looked out the back window and found this young bull moose that had lost his antlers trying to enjoy the grandkid's play things.  The tree it is looking at is their favorite climbing tree and it, and the swings are part of the "Ninja" course we set up for the energetic kids during the summer.  He appeared to want to run the course.

He had left several piles of fresh "green olives" around the lawn and I suggested to the kids that we dip them in chocolate and sell them as snacks.  Their mothers discouraged that.

On Sunday morning I found the moose sleeping in my garden.  He decided to stop by the neighbor's outhouse before heading to the river bottoms, but he found the door shut.  I am sure he thought that the "R" on the R Mountain was referring to the outhouse as the "restroom."

 

There are a lot of blessings living between the Teton and Henrys Fork Rivers - and near the wilds of Idaho. 

A lot of bull

Yesterday afternoon I decided to go to Camas National Wildlife Refuge to try to locate some migrating avocets, but got side tracked by two bull moose.  I saw one about a quarter of a mile away and decided to stalk it and see if I could get some good pictures.  Before the day would be over there would be a lot of bull out there.

The one bull moose soon turned into two bulls and I watched them heading in a general southwest direction.  I located a small knoll with a few sage brush on it and made my way there.  At time the bullrush was so tall only their antlers would be showing.  When this happened I would work to another sagebrush to try to intercept them.

Their eyesight is not very good - probably a good thing when you realize how cute the females are - but their smelling and hearing are excellent.  I tried to move as silently as I could when I needed to move.  But here the two act like they smell something funny.

But they continuely move closer to me.  The larger one is suspious and moves away while the smaller one continues working his way toward me.

I start to get very nervous when he gets about 30 feet from me and I can hear the crunching of the veggies as he eats.  Finally he hears the camera and smells me; comes to attention and decides to leave.

He flashes me as he heads back to the other bull, who has decided to tak a nap.

When he gets to the larger bull he starts eating.  Then I realize there is a bull elk in the background watching this whole bachelor party, but not willing to join in.  You can see him if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it.

It was quite a bachelor party with a lot of bull there.  With two bull moose, a bull elk, a bull human and lots of bullrushes, I even saw a little bs come from the smaller bull moose as he got too close to me.  Just another wild day in Idaho.