CAN YOU TAKE A THIRD POST ON MOOSE?

     Well, you're going to get the third post.

     You will remember that I did a lot of cycling. I rode 47 000 km from 1984 to 2019. All the riding was done on the trail system in this city. Starting in 1984 trails were put in . The original trails have aged and a lot of shrubbery and trees have grown up along the edge of the trails. There are sharp turns and with the shrubbery growth visibility is limited in some places.

     You will know that from time to time we have moose in the city. Sometimes lots of moose. Now moose don't give anybody consideration. They do what they want. Moose have found that it is very comfortable to stand on the paved trail and stick their head in the shrubbery and eat until their belly is full. Then they come back the next day and do the same thing.





    Okay. in my cycling prime I kept up a steady pace of at least 20 kph. Most of the time it was above 20 kph except on the hills .

    Well you know where this story is going.

    Twice I came around a sharp turn to find a moose with his/her head well in the shrubbery and the whole rear end out on the trail. If I put the breaks on I may disturb the moose. Worse yet I may bash into the moose. Both times I swerved to miss the moose and went within arm's length of the back side. All you can think of is those long back legs kicking out behind him/her

    When you get by sigh of relief would be an understatement.

     I'm not sure if the moose  knew I had ridden by them. I'm not sure if they even cared.

MORE MOOSE

     Just when I thought it couldn't get any better with moose stories it did.

     Lynette was out with her trusty camera and was most fortunate to find two bull moose sparring to find out who was the best. I have spent more time in the bush than most people and I have never witnessed two bull moose in conflict.

  
     This is the time of year for moose to breed. Males compete with some major fights to claim a number of females that they get to breed. 

    Most times of the year we have moose in our city of 100000. Sometimes there are quite a few. I think these moose are just across the river from where they saw the cow and two calves. 

    On several occasions I've had moose in my small urban yard . On one occasion I got up in the morning and looked out my front window and there they were...a mama with two calves about 4 m from me. Moose browse.  They eat the ends of shrubs and some trees. They were doing a good job of trimming my birch tree. It's fascinating to watch them eat. They take in an enormous amount of food. They don't do much chewing just a little so they can swallow the material. 

   They're very interesting animals. Thanks to Lynette for being on the spot and getting such excellent photos and thanks for letting me use them on my blog.
      

MOOSE

     Okay, some of you wanted to see photos of the moose the birders saw  on Nov.9. So here are three photos. They are very healthy looking animals. I think this is the same moose in all photos.

 You can see the gate behind the moose. This was where the birders were supposed to hit the road. Instead they had to turn around and go back 1.5 km.


     All photos are courtesy of Lynnette. 

MICRO SHOVELLER

      We have had lots of snow falls but none of them have been heavy deep snows. We've had some heavy wet snow which is difficult to shovel as it is very heavy. Then it doesn't fall off your shovel like it should. I don't mind shoveling light dry snow. It's light and you can easily move it away from walks or drive ways.

      Now I can handle snow shoveling. I might be  bit slow but I get there. Yesterday we were lucky and looked out the window to find Brandie, from across the street,  shoveling our side walk.

     Now from time to time the micro manager says she would like to get some fresh air and she goes out to shovel snow. She does an excellent job and the walks are clean after she's finished.

      Now the micro snow shoveller doesn't like photos taken of her. This photo is not flattering. However. she does very well at 4' 10" and more than 80 to shovel all the snow sometimes.

      She has had the winter cap for about 25 years. She got it in her cross country ski days. 

BIRD WATCHING FINISHED FOR THIS YEAR

     Some of you know that I lead a bird watching group every Saturday morning.

     Yesterday was our final day for this year. There comes a time when it's too cold for binoculars, cameras and fingers. We start to see very few birds as we don't have many winter birds.

     Yesterday was dull and cold . I didn't think we'd see much. However , our list included:Canada geese, black-billed magpie, common raven, downy woodpecker, black-capped chickadee, boreal chickadee, red-breasted nuthatch, white breasted nuthatch  and northern flicker.

     I sent the group around a 1.5 km loop and I went back to the nature center to get coffee and cake ready. Yes, we have coffee and cake on the last day. They were supposed to be back before three and they weren't back. So they had a story. They had almost got all the way around when they encountered a mother moose with two calves on the trail. When she lowered her head they cleared out as fast as possible and had to walk all the way back around the trail. They were excited about their experience.

   Birding has changed a bit. Camera optics are better than binocular optics. Many times someone gets a good photo and we use that to identify a bird. The camera has a photo and it doesn't matter if the bird flies away.

   So we had our cake and coffee and talked about what we'd seen over the summer and look forward to next year. This year we saw about 90 species. There are a little over 200 species in this area.



    One of Lynette's photos that brings in the detail.

MORE SUNSET

    My post from Nov. 5 is in need of some refinement.

    One thing that would have made things easier to understand is that the sun set at 4:52 PM . So at 6:00 Pm when I took the photos it was basically dark. There were just some great colors showing and I wanted to try and pick them up. 

   I received some good advice. It's too late to look through your camera for the right settings. By the time you find info on your camera the scene is gone. But I get it that I have to look these things up  and learn them before the scene presents itself. 

    I hate to admit it but I took these photos out of my window. Since I live in an urban area, if I went outside at ground level I would not see any of this. I  know that there are great places in the country that would give me a good view.

    A tripod. Yes, a tripod would be very helpful instead of leaning up against a wall, fence or car.

   So I will continue trying things and I hope you continue with pointers and advice.

Did I ever say I liked clouds?

SUNSET

    About 6:00 Pm out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the sun had set and it was almost dark and continued on my way. Then I stopped ans said," I think there's something out there. So why not try a photos.

     Well I figured out one thing that it's hard to focus in that light. I also found out that I'm pretty wiggly and things get blurry.

     So it was minus 8 C and about 6:00 PM.

    The white strip is the neighbors fence which was lit by the street light. The things that look lights on the left are where snow is piled up on the mountain ash berries.

     I think I need more practice on sunsets!