Oops. Perhaps those aren't the neighbor's dogs. Looks more like a mother moose and her two calves. Jasper found them when we came home from the grocery store. I sent him around to the back yard, but he stopped dead in his tracks. Good thing. Our neighborhood has already lost one dog to a moose, and nothing says "pissed" like a mom protecting the calves.
One of the calves woke up enough to pose.
The dog was ok with the moose, but the cat was quite ticked off. Her tail was puffed up and flicked back and forth. She tried staring them down, but they were not intimidated.
Finally they all got up and started munching on my trees. At least they were just shredding the leaves and not actually ripping the branches off.
Mom was always keeping a sharp eye out for any trouble, but she mostly just let the little ones do their own thing. Apparenlty this was appreciated because one came over and gave mom a kiss.
This calf decided he/she was full of my trees and laid down for the night. As I have seen before, laying down is not a graceful thing for a moose. You start by kneeling down and leaning forward.
Then it looks like you just fall down until gravity has had its way with you.
Right now they've all crashed for the night in the back yard. We'll see if they are around tomorrow, but if they are, the lawn sprinklers come on. They poop in giant piles and shred our plants. Enough is enough.
5 comments:
Oh my! And I thought we were being overrun with wildlife after sighting two huge racoons on our deck two mornings ago and the bat in our bedroom three weeks ago (it had to be caught and tested for rabies). These are fantastic photos and wonderful guests (love the one of the "little ones" taking a nap). Looks like they are really enjoying your hospitality.
Laurie
I could do without your bat, by I think raccoons are incredibly cute. They have to do a lot less damage than a moose and the poop they leave behind is certainly not as much work. While the moose are interesting, I would be happy to trade you three moose for two raccoons.
I assume the bat wasn't rabid? That could really be a scare.
- Steve
No rabies, thank goodness!! But we had a few anxious hours waiting for the test results to come back. We were awakened a 3:30 AM by the cats making a ruckus - cornering a squealing creature in the corner of the bedroom. Turned out to be a bat! Yuck! Wonder how long it had been flying around the house? Gives me the creeps just thinking about it. We hope it was an isolated incident.
They are so cute! and right at home.
When I was a kid a mother-to-be raccoon snuck into our cottage. She built a nest in the attic and raised her new born family on the ceiling tiles. You would not say they do less damage and leave behind less work if you had experienced that. And btw, they do smell badly too :-).
Nice pics!!!
Chuck
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