{"id":25826,"date":"2014-08-13T06:42:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-13T12:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=25826"},"modified":"2014-08-13T09:50:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T15:50:56","slug":"cow-moose-and-calf-on-dairy-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/13\/cow-moose-and-calf-on-dairy-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"Cow Moose And Calf On Dairy Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moose encounters aren’t everyday occurrences for me so three weeks ago\u00a0I was delighted to come across this very dark cow moose and her calf as I\u00a0explored the back roads\u00a0on the border of southwest Montana and Idaho.<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 540, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I was on a Forest Service road going up Dairy Creek when I spotted them in the sagebrush\u00a0in front of me.\u00a0\u00a0They were close, too\u00a0close for my 500mm plus tc so the first shots were tight but I wanted to get some\u00a0images\u00a0in case they turned around and high-tailed it.<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 375 mm<\/p>\n

They didn’t so I had time to switch to my zoom lens for more flexibility.\u00a0 I didn’t know it at the time but they were intent on crossing the dirt road in front of me so they could drink from tiny Dairy Creek to my right.\u00a0 Here the cow is just beginning to cross the road.<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS USM @ 375 mm<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0Once she was on the other side the calf followed.\u00a0 As you can see the youngster is all legs.<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/500, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS USM @\u00a0210 mm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a decrepit old fence between them and the creek and I wasn’t able to see how they crossed it but after they did they came out into the open to drink from the meager water in the creek.\u00a0 They took their time doing so and even though they were sidelit I spent about 25 minutes\u00a0photographing them\u00a0while they were in the creek bed.\u00a0 Mama drank lots and lots<\/em> of water!\u00a0 She was wary at first but quickly lost her apprehension…<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/640, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS USM @\u00a0210 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

so I was able to photograph a few tender moments with them, including this shot of her licking the calf.\u00a0 After drinking the cow was a champion drooler and I’m surprised we can’t see a stream of water coming off of her mouth in this image.<\/p>\n

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\"moose<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/1000, f\/8, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L IS USM @\u00a0235 mm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eventually they left the actual creek bed and wandered upstream to disappear into the willows.\u00a0 In this final image I enjoy the unobstructed look at both of them and the setting that includes Indian Paintbrush and other wildflowers.<\/p>\n

I thought their trips to the creek might be a routine for them so I looked for them at the same time and place over the next two days but I never saw them again.\u00a0 These huge animals can truly be wisps in the willows…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moose encounters aren’t everyday occurrences for me so three weeks ago I was delighted to come across this very dark cow moose and her calf as I explored the back roads on the border of southwest Montana and Idaho.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25831,"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":[334,1649],"tags":[1401,1404,2165,2032,786],"class_list":["post-25826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-moose-mammals","tag-calf","tag-cow","tag-dairy-creek","tag-idaho","tag-moose"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/moose-3043-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6Iy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826","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=25826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}