Moose on the Prairies
Driving the gravel roads that divide up the fields north of Calgary, I found this moose in the tall grass near the end of August this past summer. She was alone and seemed relaxed laying down under the late afternoon heat. I stayed for a minute, the peaceful scene one to enjoy before retreating to leave her as she was.
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A moose on the loose…
This moose was grazing in a marsh west of Bragg Creek when I drove by. She stared at me for a minute, trotted through brambles a bit and then stared back to me again.
April 24th update: Thank you to The Mysterious Blogger for suggesting the title of this post – now updated. And, to P.grover for improving my/our understanding of moose and threats to their health.
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A family of moose in Kananaskis Country
This was easily one of the sweetest moments I’ve seen when this bull moose nuzzled with his calf.
The bull is likely mating with the cow again this year which brings him into the same area as the calf. I didn’t expect them to have a bond but when this tender moment happened on the weekend, I was obviously wrong.
This calf was born in 2016 and still stays close to his mother. The three moose have been hanging around each other again during this year’s rut. I don’t know how long they will stay together as a little family before the bull returns to the solitary life.
When I started watching them, the calf was laying down while the parents grazed separately nearby. Over the next hour they all moved slowly around the small meadow and the edge of the forest. It was a relaxed atmosphere which I think is reflected in the photographs.
Eventually the big fellow laid down and was soon napping. The cow and calf continued grazing. And I headed home.
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Alces alces in a Kananaskis snowstorm
As dawn broke on a recent morning when I was up in Kananaskis, the skies were leaden and threatening to drop some form of precipitation. It was cold and windy so it seemed an open question whether it would be rain, snow or a frozen mix of the two. The weather foiled my plans for a sunrise shoot of Mount Kidd but made it an easy decision to drive further up the valley into the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. I passed a few White-tailed deer but did not see much else on the way up. Apparently I had an appointment (unbeknownst to me at the time) with this wonderful family of moose. They were standing around this marsh in plain view beside the turn off of the Kananaskis Lakes Trail up to the Upper Lake’s parking lot and trailhead.
The calf stayed close to her mom but was not very shy. Staring at me several times to satisfy her curiosity about what I was and whether I was something of interest or not. The bull was hidden within a few trees at first so it was a great surprise when I saw his antlers first come into sight.
When a snowplow passed by, its scoop loudly grinding against the asphalt, the young one was startled and ran a little ways off from the roadside. Mom followed and they munched along as they slowly headed into the forest.
The bull was a magnificent creature. Healthy and very confident, neither the vehicles nor my presence made any impression on him. He kept his eyes on any activity around him but was focused on grazing. I watched him for the next hour as he moved between trees, bogs and little fields. Their ability to blend in and disappear, despite their size, was observed many times and always surprises me.
The storm’s intensity ebbed and flowed through the morning and the snow followed accordingly. At times falling hard, at times almost stopping completely. Along with adjusting the camera settings to drag the shutter and blur the snow’s motion or freeze the flakes in action, it was a great setting to photograph these moose in.
The bull kept an eye on the family as they went into the trees and eventually followed them away from the marsh. The encounter ended shortly thereafter but I would not ask for anything more. It was a great day in Kananaskis.
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Walking through autumn
This beautiful moose looked amazing in this autumn meadow. Snow in Moraine Lake that morning, was rain lower in the valley. This created a glow in the grass and a shine on her coat.
She crossed the meadow slowly, grazing as she went along, before she slipped up into the forest. I continued west along the Bow Valley Parkway and met up with a Grizzly to continue a particularly great day.
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A bold young moose
This calf and his mother were in the Bragg Creek Provincial Park, grazing on the edge of the forest near the road. With momma close by, the calf was bolder than I expected. He stared at me from a few paces in the trees before crossing the road and walking very close to my car.
Once he had checked me out, then he skipped back again and joined in snacking on the greenery.
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Mother and calf: Moose in Kananaskis
In early April I went into Kananaskis along Highway 66 from Bragg Creek. I was late getting out of bed and did not leave myself enough time to set up for a sunrise shoot. I went for a short hike around Elbow Falls but returned to my car pretty quickly. Heading back, I was scouring the hillsides and trees for wildlife. I was lucky to catch this female just as she was stepping out of the forest. The sun hadn’t cleared the mountains across the Elbow River so the moose was not yet in the sunlight. I decided to set my camera up on my tripod and wait for a few minutes.
When the sun rose over the hill, the light was soft and warm so I was quite happy to sit quietly and watch as she moved around.
Patience often pays off and it was true on this occasion. After at least fifteen minutes of watching the moose casually grazing along the slope, I heard a couple of sticks break near where she had come out from the trees before. A couple of minutes after that, a calf came out onto the hillside.
The young moose watched me with a bit of apprehension for a minute, but after a few checks with mom, started grazing and wandering around the scrub brush.
The pair dined for a while occasionally eating together with mom always watchful as cars passed by or a strange sound came to her ears. They were calm and it was special to be able to watch them. I hope the buds, leaves and shoots start to grow soon so their rather austere winter diet is replaced.
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A Christmas moose… or two
My parents and I went out for our fairly annual moose run this morning. The kids give the drive to look for wildlife a pass as they were busy assembling new toys and reading new books. We found two bull moose in a line of aspen along a ridge and watched them walking for a few minutes. They dropped down through the deep snow into a meadow of scrubby willows nearby and set about grazing on the slender branches.
One of the moose had shed its antlers while the other still carried a beautiful rack. Both were big, strong boys and it was great to see them in such good health here in the middle of winter.
Aside from that, it was nice to share an encounter with these wonderful animals with my parents on Christmas morning.
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Moose in Bragg Creek (now snow-free)
Mother Nature flipped a switch a week ago and now we are free of snow and the temperatures are t-shirt appropriate. The moose probably aren’t excited about the warmer weather but I’m sure they are enjoying snacking on the new greenery. Looking at the photographs of this young bull moose afterwards, it struck me that it has been about nine months since I have had snow-free backgrounds of moose.
Regarding the moose, expect that they will start retreating for the cooler forest just after dawn pretty soon. I think it is finally safe to say we are now coming out of the mild, but very long, winter here.
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Forest portraits of a Bragg Creek moose
When the mother and calf had retreated into the woods, this moose remained in the meadow and kept grazing.
When she moved into a stand of brambles, I used larger apertures to minimize the depth of field to separate her head from the branches in the foreground and background.
The shallow plane of focus and a black and white conversion worked well for this image below.
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It’s cold and the moose are out
The moose around Bragg Creek, and elsewhere I would imagine, like the cold. When the thermometer drops below zero, they seem to come out. The colder, the better. This weekend we have stayed below -20°C and I found moose in a few different places around West Bragg Creek.
I got to spend an hour with a small herd of three cows and one calf. They were pretty docile, grazing on slender, red branches for much of the morning. They moved together and apart between stands of these branches and more open meadow. The young one played a little bit, running between mother and minders a couple of times.
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Moose Travels
These two moose crossed a farm field moving towards the heavier woods of Kananaskis, west of Bragg Creek. The mother kept up a brisk trot but the calf seemed untroubled by the pace. She came towards me across the field and then joined a path that crossed a low point in the fence a hundred feet in front of me. On the road they paused for a second and then hiked up into the forest.
Christopher Martin Photography 