The second calf kept looking over his shoulder at me:
Then I curled up on the couch with my book. A few moments later, I happened to glance out the window and see a brown line of fuzz pass through the lower part of the window frame. I got up and looked out, and sure enough, there was another moose walking along my path around the cabin.
Meese are charming (and tasty) neighbors, but I hope I never inadvertently get too close!
2 comments:
wow! Well I'm glad that story had a happy ending. Do moose have a habitual path that they take, or are they random wanderers? I guess they're not too frightened of dogs as I'm sure the outer edges of your yard have been "marked" by the girls, right? At that size I'll bet they're not too frightened of anything.
I remember back when I lived in Wisconsin the local stores would sell deer "whistles" that you attach to the antenna of your car or somewhere so that the rushing air would pass through them and make a "go away deer" whistle. Does that work? Does that work for moose?
I'm sure they have paths; most animals do, and you can see their little trails all over the place. But I have yet to predict a moose's commute, so maybe it isn't so much habit as just using the same trail network.
They are shy critters and tend only to fight when either 1) you've cornered them and they have no escape route, 2) you are between a mama and her calf/calves, or 3) it is a bull moose in rut. Since I could see mama and calves, and there are no barriers to travel in our neighborhood (such as fences, etc), I felt perfectly safe driving past them.
And no, they aren't really frightened of dogs. There is ample evidence that meese know that dogs are domesticated, and some meese even bed down adjacent to dog yards, knowing that the tethered dogs can't harm them, and will serve as sentries against wolves.
I have asked about those whistles, but heard that they aren't very effective. All they do is startle the animal, but it startles animals toward your car as often as away, giving you a net gain of zero.
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