After hiking in the Chugach mountains for hours and seeing two bull moose far, far away, with dark dots representing the moose, we headed for home. The hike had smoothed out my brain synapses and was, of course, fun. But the irony, as is the case with irony, was in finding this bull moose in our suburbs.
Does this bull look as though he’s smirking? Can a rutting bull moose smirk while wearing a yellow birch leaf beneath his beautiful unsullied rack? Probably, particularly when he stands, as wikipedia reports,
“…1.8–2.1 m (6–7 ft) high at the shoulder. Males weigh 380–720 kg (850–1580 pounds) and females weigh 270–360 kg (600–800 pounds).[7] The largest of all is the Alaskan subspecies (A. a. gigas), which can stand over 2.1 m (7 ft) at the shoulder, has a span across the antlers of 1.8 m (6 ft) and averages 634.5 kg (1,396 lbs) in males and 478 kg (1,052 lbs) in females.[8] Typically, however, the antlers of a mature specimen are between 1.2 m (3.9 ft) and 1.5 m (4.9 ft).”
And they can kick out with their front legs and hooves as well as their rear hooves. Probably can’t do the hokey pokey, however.