Winter Moose

Snacking in the snow.

We have resident moose here at the ranch on a year round basis, and it’s not uncommon to see them striding past the kitchen window.  You would think that, with such long legs and oddly proportioned head and body, they would look ungainly, but they most definitely do not.  They have a grace that makes their long legged pace look almost relaxed and easy and they cover distance at a remarkably fast rate.  Their long legs lift them up above the snow, and they don’t find it the obstacle that deer do.  So, while the deer and elk leave our high mountain ranch in the winter time, the moose are content to move from one drainage to another, crossing over the ridge that our home and bison ranch sits on, and striding down the other side.  While they eat substantial amounts of aquatic vegetation in the summer months, spending long hours in willow thickets and streams, their winter diet is more accessible on the mountain slopes and south exposures where aspen, fivewillow and chokecherry, snowberry, snowbrush and other shrubby offerings stick up above the snow.    This fella is using his front hooves to paw through the snow to reach vegetation hiding away there.