Off the Grid at -30: birds

In the last few months we haven't done very much in the way of walking. Going for a walk up here is much different from in the city and requires more preparation. Also, with so many moose around it was not a really good idea. We didn't want to scare them away as we have been having too much fun watching them and we also didn't want to come face to face with one that might not take our presence to be a good thing. However, seeing as they seemed to have disappeared and the deer were back, Mountain Man decided it was time to go for a bit of a walk about the property.

Wouldn't you know it but I was elbow deep in baking (literally) so couldn't go with him. Not sure why he choose that time to go, but it being baking day I wasn't leaving the kitchen. It takes a while to get the oven in my wood stove to the right temperature and I had cookies, biscuits, scones and pizza ready to baked, so I just sighed and told him to have fun and went back to my baking. Thankfully he decided to take my camera along with him.

The air was brisk but fairly nice and he had a lovely walk. He found a lot of deer tracks but although the tracks were fresh the makers of the tracks kept hidden. It wasn't until he was on his way back and had just come around a bend in the track that he spotted a huge shape in the trees. A moose! There he was, just laying there half hidden behind the trees starring at him.

He was only about 35 feet away so Mountain Man was able to see him pretty up close and personal, kinda like my little experience when I was walking to the outhouse. This one is pretty young and is probably only a year or two old. Take a real close look at his head, right in front of his ear. Do you see it? There is a round spot there where his antlers fell off and will be growing back soon.

It wasn't until Mountain Man was going to start walking away that he notice a much larger female moose standing and watching him. He has no idea how long she was there or if she had been there the entire time and he just didn't see her but she was just as close as this guy and much larger. Time to complete his walk and head home. Hah! So all the moose didn't leave! Wow! This place is getting busy! What will be next?

I did take a bit of a break that day and was able to capture a flock of birds feeding outside dining room window. It was so funny to watch them. They flew around and around the house and then settled on some tall plants and proceeded to eat. There were probably 25 to 30 of them.