Orphaned Moose Visitor to the Tiny House

 

There are a lot of moose that live in my immediate area. And I see them quite frequently. I spotted 4 different moose today alone. Either from my house or while shoveling snow on a few neighboring properties. But this little girl pictured above is a little special in my heart. She is an orphan and first came by the house without her mama about two weeks ago. While she's little for a moose, she's obviously still quite a large animal. And just in case you have never been around moose, while I find them fascinating like all wild things, they can be very dangerous animals as well. But impressive to see going about their daily lives!

This little one, I've been calling her "Baby Girl," has apparently adopted our tiny house as her new home for now.  Below you can see some of the video footage of her first week around our house (if you are avoiding using Youtube, you can also find this video on Fy Nyth's Odysee channel here.) and hear some of her story. Some version of Orphan Annie seems to have gotten to most votes as a name for her, with Twiggy a close second.

She must feel secure here or at least it's easy to walk around the shoveled paths because she's continued to sleep right outside the house for two full weeks now. She also may be trying to avoid other adult moose that frequent the area but don't often sleep right up against the house as they are not a very social species and other mothers have been known to try to kill babies that are not their own. 

Some of her comings and goings have been captured by the game camera as well. And kind of let you see how overall small she is compared to the snowbanks. Which make it easy to understand why she (and most adult moose as well!) would prefer to not have to wade through the deep snow on their long legs and heavy bodies if they don't have to. 

But she does look bigger when she stands right in front of the camera! :) 

Though as she walks around the corner of the house and past the snow covered grill, you can get a better idea of her height. 

More long naps in the pathway around the house. If I wanted, I could probably open a window and touch her. But as I mentioned, moose can be quite unpredictable and are known to attack people. They certainly kill dogs if they get the chance. And while I don't know how much of those behaviors she has already learned, I do not want to encourage her to act in any unnatural manor, so for our safety and hers, we just watch her out the windows.

She still seems to be finding plenty to eat as evidenced by the now quite numerous deposits she has made around here. These photos are just two of many. All the little bushes and lower branches around our clearing have now had a thorough pruning for sure! Some more good reasons to not feed a moose things that are not naturally part of their diet, in addition to everything I discussed in the video, is that like all of us, that can mess with proper digestion. Her pellets all looks good and like totally normal moose poops.

Above you can just see the black and white flash of a magpie that's helping both of them out by eating ticks off of her.

In this shot she is that black lump curled up right at the edge of the trees as seen from the bedroom loft window under a bright moonlight sky around midnight. 

Seeing that she has now eaten most of the things she can around our house, every day I think she will move on to a different area. There are plenty of places nearby with lots of willows and things that moose love to eat. And she can get to those areas via shoveled or plowed paths as well. But so far she's still mostly hanging out here. Yesterday I saw her headed up the mountain side towards a neighbor who lives on the other side of the hill and I thought that might be the last we saw of her right around here. But when I woke up and looked out last night, there she was, once again curled up against the house. And standing right outside the window when we got out of bed in the morning.

I never know when she might decide to stop sleeping beside Fy Nyth, but we certainly wish her the best in life whenever she decides to move on!