Although I always enjoy seeing them, I don't usually bother to stop and view our local moose, much less photograph them. Typically, I just take a second to appreciate seeing wildlife as I keep moving. But these young twins caught my attention during a 
ride Monday afternoon.For one thing, I don't usually see four moose at the same time, but these twins were right beside the Coastal Trail, and their mom was only a few yards away. Another mature moose was about 50 yards away on the other side of the trail. I have visitors in town and, like most tourists, they want to see moose. So I stopped to snap a few pics for them, and left when the twins crossed the paved trail and the cow started glaring at me.
I framed the shots through the main triangle of my road bike because A) I thought doing so would make a nice composition and provide some indication of how close the moose were, and B) it was a chance to get my bike in the shot, and I'm sort of a geek when it comes to shit like that.
My sister-in-law looked at these shots and thought I was crazy enough to try hiding behind my bike. I told her that if there were any hiding to be done, I would have hidden my bike behind me, to shield it with my body in the event of a charge.
That thing wasn't cheap, you know.
How crazy does she think I am?
4 comments:
Being the city boy I am.....is there any danger of the moose getting pissed off and using you for a scratching post?
We have the same thing here in Wisconsin... only with cows (dairy type).
Nice pics!
That's pretty cool man. What sweet thing to be able to get that close to animals that most poeple on earth never even get to see. By the way, sacrificing life and limb to keep our bikes safe only seems like the right thing to do. Cheers.
George -- If they only got mad and scratched, it wouldn't be a big problem. If they get really pissed, they charge, knock you down, and then stomp the hell out of you. Fatalities are fairly rare, but occasionally a moose will stomp a person to death.
I don't stick around long enough to make them that mad. At the first sign of irritation, I split. (And, like I said, I rarely stop and linger anyway.) The biggest danger is coming across a moose that someone else has already pissed off, so you have no warning that it's ready to rumble.
That happened a few years ago when a bunch of foolish students were throwing snowballs at a moose at a local university. Some poor dude who didn't know what was going on stepped out the door of a building and was immediately stomped to death.
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