Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Moose sighting

We've been living in New Hampshire for just over two years now and have enjoyed more wildlife than many people will see in a lifetime.  Just in our own back yard we've had thousands of birds, groundhogs, fox (grey and red), black bears, up to 60 turkeys at once, porcupine, raccoons, skunks, a bob cat three times now and today, I finally got to see a moose!  Not in our yard, mind you, but just a 1/2 mile up the road from our house in the meadow.

When Oliver and I first spotted her, she was wading in the pond eating weeds.  For several moments I tried to convince myself it was a lost cow.  I tried to photograph her with my iphone but she was too far away for a good photo and I was afraid to approach her.  Oliver and I ran home as fast as we could, retrieved the camera and returned in the car (for safety and for speed).  She had already started heading across the meadow, but we turned down Old Street Road and parked and she came towards us.  Oliver remained in the car, standing up in the backseat where he could watch.  The moose was aware of us and also she could hear a dog barking in on the houses that backs up to the meadow.  I took about 30 photos and to get her to look my direction, I whistled and to my surprise, she walked towards me and got fairly close.  After about ten minutes, she finally headed into the woods (where we often walk).

The only other excitement was the return of the hummingbirds yesterday, they are already fighting over the feeder.  Last year, I tried having multiple feeders to alleviate that problem but it didn't work, they just fought over all of them.  Oh and yesterday, the groundhog was chasing our cat around the yard, not really aggressively so perhaps it just wanted to play?




3 comments:

Shin said...

awesome!

Carole Reid said...

Oh lucky you! I've wanted to see one in the wild for years. There are no moose on Vancouver Island, just deer...and bears....and cougars....etc.....

vivienne strauss said...

I have spoken to a lot of people since, many have lived here their entire lives and haven't seen one so I feel very very lucky.