[Note: there are glitches with the website program where photos get uploaded that I didn't post here. You'll see this throughout my posts and I haven't been able to fix it.]
My heart melts when I witness kindness. My dog is so sweet around wildlife. He's the best bud a wildlife photographer could have.
It's that time of year for these little ones (chipmunks) where they are busy making sure to have a huge winter stash. Rather than hibernating clear through winter, they will sleep a few days at a time and wake to raise their body temperature and then they turn to their summer/fall savings rather than fat reserves to get through the long, snowy, cold months ahead.
I spent an hour with this bull moose today. What was extraordinary (beyond the hour long visit) was watching him wallow. This happens during the mating season, usually by the dominant bull of the area. I watched him paw and scrape the ground and then he marked it over and over. I have video of this too. I didn't see him lie down, which is something they will do to get the scent on their body. He wallowed in two locations. If one was a good wallow, he will likely visit it frequently during the breeding season to see if the pit has attracted any cow moose. If a cow finds one of these moose wallows she will stay in the vicinity and await the bull. What's cool is both wallows are right near my cabin! Moose wallows are randomly placed and are seldom in the same location year over year.
I have some video of him going up the road to the meadow. I photographed him all along the walk to where he made two wallows. He got to meet my dog after about 45 minutes. All was calm with both of them. If you pay close attention to wildlife siblings, you'll often notice how different each one reacts to unfamiliar experiences, especially potential danger. In the photo shoot below, I've posted the pics in the order they were taken. The fawn on the right in the first photo will be the one who makes his way to mom. The one on the left will remain curious and assesses me long after her sibling has left. I was told by a farmer who raised goats, that the bonding each new life makes with their mother dictates this behavior. The fawn on the left is more independent (likely didn't have a strong bond) and will exhibit this bolder behavior on subsequent encounters. The one on the right will be seen nearer his mother for comfort more often than not. After the sibling has made his way to mom, this little one is still 'eyes on me' trying to figure things out. I have seen this pattern over and over. Even when this one begins to move toward mom and sibling, she is still willing to find something to eat and was willing to explore around her before joining them. It is extraordinary to see Blue Herons this high (10,000 feet/3048 m) in the Colorado mountains. I've seen this pair twice in two days. I've only seen these birds up in this area a few times in my life. They were last seen flying toward the smoky Sawatch Mountain Range.
After googling high altitude herons I found that 18 nesting pairs of great blue herons are nesting on the Slate River over in Crested Butte, about an hour away. Click here to read about them. From my office window, I photographed this bull after some head butting with another bull. I was on a business call at the time, so didn't pull my camera out until this bull began kicking up dust. This was after seeing a mommy moose and her baby and two blue herons. Perfect way to start my day.
I saw this moose last night after my deer family shoot, but it was too dark for photographs. I went looking for her this evening and found her again! She was calm and eating in between looking up to see me. I whistled to get her attention. She was completely content with me being there. I left before she did. This is about a half mile from where I'm staying.
These geese were out on the same pond as the pair of blue herons. Both are unusual for this elevation in the Colorado Rockies.
I put this cup filled with various nuts way up high so that the ground squirrels and chipmunks couldn't get it. A tree squirrel could, but the one around here is more interested in the stashed mushrooms he found under the cabin.
It took these Clark's Nutcrackers a dozen or more tries of flying to the cup and falling off before figuring out how to land on the wire and balance while getting the nuts. Once they figured it out, they could fly with perfect precision from any point and were masters in no time. When they spilled some of the seeds and nuts, they would compete with the little critters in retrieval efforts and then fly straight up like a helicopter to land back on the wire! The shadows and lighting from early morning made the photography challenging. What was special was when I left this mom and baby, I came upon a second mom and baby! Below, about 1/4 mile from the first mom and baby, another
pair were on the road and then dashed into the forest. Photos by Betsy Seeton "Moose are solitary animals, which is why your encounter will probably About ten days ago I noticed dried mushrooms on my deck. Then one morning, I stepped out front and on my porch were these mushrooms pictured below. It's been a dry summer and no mushrooms are out yet. These are probably from the local rat who was stashing them from the bountiful harvest of mushrooms last summer. Here's the baby grey squirrel dashing over my deck to the forest to hide each found mushroom! I watched him duck under my cabin and emerge with a mushroom. I followed him into the forest and watched him hide them, one by one, in tree limbs. He was busy for over two hours this morning. Here he is just leaving my cabin where he ran right past me with his treaure. After hiding the mushrooms, he went back to one of the nearest trees to my deck and began to enjoy a snack. Below he hid the one he'd been eating and ran to another limb to find a newly stashed one to try. Below is a ground squirrel that found one of the dried mushrooms today. The squirrel ends up dropping them on his way to find new hiding places. Later in the afternoon, the little guy ran across my deck to the forest. I followed. He began digging through pine needles and dirt on the ground and running from one area to another until he scored a mushroom.
This little guy comes to his name. He was born last summer and made it through a long, Colorado winter.
This was straight out of the camera last night.
I spent the day in reflection. It was a nice way to end what for some was a day of celebration, while for others, it was a day remembering that it doesn't include them. Here's to hoping Americans gain the wisdom to create a country where independence and equality will be for all people. |
The company I use for this website is Weebly and for some unknown reason random photos of mine appear throughout my postings unrelated to what I uploaded. If a fox appears on a blog about a moose or some other animal or photo unrelated to the blog, you'll know why! It's unfixable.
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