The Bachelors + repost

Gallery: WildlifePosted January 10, 2015465 views8 comments

Thought I would post this, as I have never seen so many moose all in one place. It's a single frame, cropped from top and bottom.

Last weekend (Jan 4) I was out between Turner Valley and Millarville, in a place where I've had relatively good success at finding moose (in winter anyways). At first, I was watching two, then 3 more ran across an open field, eventually joining up - so there was a group of 5 bull moose just hanging out.

Or, so I thought.

After I'd been watching for about 45 minutes, I decided to move on, but at about that same moment, they started to move, then head towards where I'd been. Something in the way they were moving made me turn back. The ones I had been watching were joined by a group of other individuals that seemed to come from nowhere. The whole group strung out and all crossed this open space single-file.

There were 11 individuals in total. 8 had antlers, one had recently dropped his (he's the one being challenged on the left side of this image), one not in this shot was clearly a juvenile (short face). There was another antler-less individual, which I assume would be another bull who has also dropped his antlers, but I never did get a good clear look, so can't be certain.

The next day they had split up again, into at least three separate groups.

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on January 11, 2015 at 1:14 PM

WOW! Glad you were able to capture this gathering. Like your pano crop, but think you could take a bit more off of the bottom. Miss your tech info! Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Carol Nichols on January 11, 2015 at 5:00 PM

Wow, that must have been so much fun to watch and photograph. Your pano crop is an excellent way to show this grouping of moose. I can't think of anything to make the image any better. Kudos to you for being out in the cold and waiting around for this grouping to get together.

Registered on November 7, 2007, 161 Posts, 1420 Comments

Comment posted by John Launstein on January 11, 2015 at 8:17 PM

Hi Karen! Are you kidding me?!

I have NEVER seen anything like that around these parts or any other! What a remarkable event to witness...and you came away with a fine story-telling image out of it as well! I think I lean with John toward cropping more from the bottom, though of course it's hard to say without seeing the original file or knowing your thinking that led to this decision in the first place...but I like it without the OOF brush in the LRC and white expanse across the bottom. After cropping from the bottom, adding sky to keep the same general aspect ratio would be fine, and would have the added benefit of moving the moose to the bottom third (or at least lower in the frame then their general center-line position now). Just a thought! Hmmm... a little more room on the right is a second thought!

Very jealous...I stuck at one moose on the whole year last year and that was from a couple hundred yards trying to handhold the 500 at dusk through my wife's open truck window.

Registered on April 5, 2011, 223 Posts, 1193 Comments

Comment posted by Karen Kane on January 11, 2015 at 10:18 PM

Thanks for the feedback - it certainly did help to move the crop up and get the moose to the bottom third. I did clone in a bit of canvas on the right too - I knew it was tight, but that was the edge of the frame.

When these guys came across, I was confused about whether to zoom out and get as many as I could in the frame (which made the individual moose very tiny) or zoom in and only try to get two or three in each image. I did a bit of both, but for me - the moment was defined by how many moose there were, so went with this one.

John L - I always thought moose tended more towards solitary lives, but have seen bachelor groups of 3-5 individuals in this same area on many occasions since the first one I saw, which was back in November 2009. Last year there were also several cow-calf pairs in the same general area, but I haven't seen them (yet) this fall/winter.

Techs: ISO 800, 1/640 sec at f/8.0, +1/3EV, 70-300mm lens @ 120mm

Registered on August 4, 2012, 66 Posts, 726 Comments

Comment posted by Brad Hill on January 12, 2015 at 8:56 AM

Hi Karen,

I know that area very well and have seen isolated moose around there, I've never seen anything like this - very cool. Tough gathering and arrangement to photograph effectively (beyond documenting the event). One suggestion would be to crop about 1/3 of the foreground snow away and adding about that much room on top (if you have it). That would leave foreground, background mountains, and sky is approximate 1/3 ratios and function to get the moose off the midline of the frame. If you have any room to the the right I'd add a little of it back just to give slightly more room for the lead moose to move into.

Thanks for sharing this one...

Brad

PS: Oops...and now I have seen the re-post. My only comment here would be to take slightly more off the bottom to get the moose just a little lower in the frame (but that's obviously a personal preference issue).

Registered on May 29, 2007, 431 Posts, 6061 Comments

Comment posted by Roel Wijtmans on January 12, 2015 at 12:05 PM

??? That is just weird.... Glad you were there to capture it! The repost is a big improvement.

Registered on September 30, 2012, 116 Posts, 2257 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on January 13, 2015 at 3:52 PM

Already well analyzed...but I wanted to add that this unusual parade is a treat to see! Thanks for posting it.

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on January 21, 2015 at 12:07 AM

I like the repost better than the first. Glad you were able to capture this event and share it with us.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments