{"id":18273,"date":"2013-09-10T04:00:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T10:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=18273"},"modified":"2013-09-08T18:46:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-09T00:46:19","slug":"moose-of-skyline-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/10\/moose-of-skyline-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Moose Of Skyline Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week we drove up to the top of Bountiful Peak in the Wasatch Mountains via Skyline Drive.\u00a0 The 25 mile (not including\u00a0the side roads we took) loop\u00a0road between Bountiful and Farmington is gravel, winding. steep\u00a0and often narrow but the views of the valley below from elevations up to 9200 feet are spectacular and the wildlife and bird possibilities beckoned us.\u00a0 We mostly struck out with birds but had a great time with a momma moose and her calf at the edge of some ponds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

I only include this shot because it shows the relative sizes of the cow and her growing youngster.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

I got very few shots of the cow because she spent most of her time browsing in the tall\u00a0vegetation growing out of the water.\u00a0 She took about three steps from this spot and was so deep in the water and plants that only her ears were visible most of the time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

The calf was showing some independence and browsed for a while on higher ground about 50 yards from its parent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

But then it decided to venture out into the water, muck and grass…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

and it didn’t take long before its\u00a0relatively small\u00a0hind feet plunged deeply into the muck.\u00a0 The image is soft and I\u00a0 think the reason for that is because I broke out laughing when it happened.\u00a0 Taking sharp shots with a 500mm lens plus extender\u00a0doesn’t mix well with\u00a0laughter from the photographer…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

But it extricated itself with no serious damage done…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"moose<\/a><\/p>\n

and then frolicked around the edge of the pond for some time before it went back to browsing on higher ground.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"antelope<\/a><\/p>\n

Many of you have seen so many bird and mammal images I’ve taken on Antelope Island I thought you might enjoy seeing it from a much different perspective.\u00a0\u00a0This is one of the views from high in the Wasatch along Skyline Drive, looking down over\u00a0the valley below.<\/p>\n

The island itself\u00a0runs north-south and is 15 miles long and 7 miles wide at its widest point.\u00a0 I’ve marked the ends of the island with small, red arrows.\u00a0 \u00a0If you squint a little you can see the causeway leading to the island just to the right of the arrow on the right.<\/p>\n

The shoreline\u00a0of the Great Salt Lake has receded considerably due to our current drought, so right now it’s a bit of a stretch to even call it\u00a0an island.\u00a0 Most of the lake is out of view to the right of the frame edge.<\/p>\n

Some of you may have seen a view similar to this as you flew into the\u00a0Salt Lake Valley on commercial airlines.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0 I’m delighted to be “on the road” again – it’s been a\u00a0very\u00a0long time between camping trips!\u00a0 As per usual I won’t be able to respond to comments for a few days (extremely spotty phone signal and no computer)\u00a0but I do get your comments via email on my phone and enjoy them very much.\u00a0 Hope to have some interesting shots to share when we get back!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week we drove up to the top of Bountiful Peak in the Wasatch Mountains via Skyline Drive. The 25 mile (not including the side roads we took) loop road between Bountiful and Farmington is gravel, winding and narrow but the views of the valley below from elevations up to 9200 feet are spectacular and the wildlife and bird possibilities beckoned us. We mostly struck out with birds but had a great time with a momma moose and her calf at the edge of some ponds.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,1649],"tags":[1650,31,1582,1401,786,870,318],"class_list":["post-18273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-moose-mammals","tag-aerial-view","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-bountiful-peak","tag-calf","tag-moose","tag-skyline-drive","tag-wasatch-mountains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/moose-8480-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-4KJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}