Moose, Spruce Grouse, Coyote (20140928) Zelly Loves Highway 40

With a flight in the evening Zel wanted to visit Highway 40 while he was here in town. He loves that road and all the great vista's that it affords us. It is also a great place to find critters occasionally. Today would be one of those days :) Our first capture was this nice bull moose. It would appear that he has broken off one of his antlers somehow. If it was during a sparring match I would love to see the winner.

 

This large guy was on a mission and wouldn't stop for anything. We watched him for a bit and distracted hi off of the road to where he would be safer.

Next up was a group of Cow moose on the road side with this youngster. It was quite a cool morning and you can see the frost on the backs of several of these animals.

At this time of year, where the Cows are the Bulls are too far behind. So we waited a bit and Mr. Big appeared.

Here he is walking by the corner of the truck. What a beautiful specimen! I am not even close to getting just his head into the frame.

He walked down the road and crossed over following the ladies. Then for the first time ever I heard one of the cows call him up the hill. He headed up like he was told and they went about their business without the prying eyes around. This is Zel getting up close but still staying close to cover.

Here is a shot of a cow that has either already been "serviced" or might be his date tomorrow.

On the way home we passed this Coyote, so we pulled off the road up ahead and waited for him to come to us.

Then one of my favourite little side roads produced a hen spruce with four of her little ones.

We had great light and Mom was allowing us to be inside her "circle of confidence" so we had great "access" to the subjects. Her chicks were just great!

I expect that I will have to do a supplemental of these fabulous birds and pay tribute to the time that they shared with us. Our last little subject of the day is this little lamb, but I don't think he goes by the name of Mary :)  Meet Larry the little Lamb.

Zelly took over 800 shots today, the vast majority of them were landscapes, so he was a happy lad. He even got to spend some time with a moose we saw back in 2012. Take a look here to see the last time he saw Mr. Big. I hope that everyone had a chance to spend a little time with some wildlife this past weekend!

Turbo