Finding Wildlife pt. 3: The naturalist’s notebook
Photos and Text by: Jared Lloyd
During the spring and summer, moose have completely different dietary needs than they do in the fall and winter - and in this lies the reason that you can find moose in the above-mentioned locations.
In the warmer months, a moose’s diet is geared towards regaining weight lost from the winter. A bull, for instance, can lose up to 240lbs over the course of a winter. This means that their diet is heavily focused on easily digestible vegetation with very little fiber. In Wyoming, this comes in the form of willows, aspens, and forbs (leafy weeds).
The second major need are minerals. Minerals, such as sodium, help to increase milk production in cows, antler growth in bulls, and hair growth in both sexes. Such minerals can be found in two key locations for moose: salt licks and aquatic vegetation.
The ways in which moose obtain their minerals should be of great interest to photographers. This is one of those perfect examples of where understanding the ecology of a species instantly impacts your photography.
You see, aquatic vegetation tends to contain significantly more minerals than terrestrial plants – up to 500 times more. But for the Rocky Mountain members of the moose tribe, mineral licks are readily available all over the place thus making aquatic vegetation an optional part of the diet as opposed to a mandatory part. In the West, where mineral licks are commonplace, moose do not have the need to spend much time actually in the water searching for food like they do in places such as Maine.
So, if that classic shot of a moose standing waist deep in a pond or bog lifting his head up with water pouring off of his paddles is what you are after, then DON”T come to Wyoming. Go to Maine for that one, where the primary sources of minerals are found in aquatic vegetation instead of mineral licks.
When we are beginning our journey into wildlife photography, simply having access to a moose is all that matters to us. But once you have experienced moose, once you have seen them and photographed them, the natural tendency is to begin pre-visualizing different types of photographs you want to create. And this is where such nuanced information really begins to come into play in terms of the difference between Wyoming and Maine moose and the types of photographs we are going to create.
Prior to this article, did you ever consider the mineral and nutrient content of vegetation, and make a decision where you were going to photograph in response?
This is how I see the world. It dictates my decisions to travel to one location or another. It’s the reason the largest moose in the world are in Alaska, or why elk have bigger antlers in one location vs another.
In the fall, after the rut, dietary needs change dramatically for both cows and bulls. By this time of the year calves have been weaned and are no longer supplementing their diet with milk. Thus, the cow’s need for sodium decreases significantly. For the bulls, antler growth stopped as soon as the rut kicked in and therefore sodium requirements fall off greatly for them as well. Throughout the duration of the rut, bulls do not eat. They devote all of their energy and every waking moment to this annual ritual. As a result, these animals, like all others who experience a rut, lose a considerable amount of weight right at the very time of the year they need to be preparing for winter.
Timed perfectly for the survival needs of moose is the peak production of protein in the scrubby little sage-like species of plant known as bitterbrush. This plant grows extensively throughout the Antelope Flats area of Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. In the late fall and early part of the winter, when protein production in the bitterbrush first begins to peak, it’s not uncommon to find up to 20 monster bull moose bunched up together in a bachelor group out in the bitterbrush of Antelope Flats. Day after day, these moose will be hanging out in the open from November (once the rut is over) on through the winter.
Want to get action shots of bulls sparring? Even though the heat of the rut is over with, this is the easiest time of the year to capture that sort of action because all the bulls are hanging out together in bachelor groups. The more bulls in close proximity to each other, the more likely you will get photographs of them sparring. And they are all coming together because of the bitterbrush.
This is what I refer to as the “post-rut.” In essence, the rut is over. The boys have gotten the band back together again. But residual hormones are still lingering in their bodies. Yes, everyone is getting along again. However, these males will spend hours every day lightly sparing with each other.
During the rut, actual confrontations can and do end with one animal becoming mortally wounded. Because of this potentiality, there is a risk – reward factor that needs to be considered at all times for these bulls. And more often than not, one bull moose backs down before things go to blows.
Moose are not like elk. Very few photographers have the opportunity to witness a legitimate battle between two bull moose during the rut for this reason. And so, if you want photographs that depict moose locked in dubious battle with each other, showing up after the rut is finished is a better strategy.
Food and sex.
Are you starting to understand why this sort of information is so terribly important?
In Jackson Hole, snow will usually begin falling come late September. As is to be expected, it first begins to accumulate up in the mountains. Once it really starts to pile up, high up, food becomes difficult to and everything from moose to elk to bears move down to lower elevations.
As the season progresses, eventually snow begins to pile up down in the valley as well – usually by the end of November / early December. Come January, bitterbrush becomes inaccessible to moose. When this occurs, they bulls drop their antlers and both sexes move on to dense stands of conifers where they will feed off of the needles of spruce and fir trees. This is why the Algonquians came up with the name Mooswa for these creatures to begin with, which means “twig eater.”
The problem with a diet of fir needles, however, is that moose have a very difficult time digesting high fibrous foods like this. So, despite having a full stomach, during the dead of winter, moose are slowly starving to death. And similar to other large herbivores in the region, they are now extremely susceptible to predators such as wolves.
Want to maximize your chances of photographing wolves? Come in the winter when these big ungulates are starving, as this is when wolves begin to risk hunting them.
From the above description, hopefully you can see exactly how understanding the story of moose will help you find these animals and create the types of images you are most interested in. This same sort of biography can be made for every species in every habitat on the planet. And it all boils down to the interplay between food and sex. If you understand how these two driving forces work upon your subject, then you will quickly find yourselr light years ahead of most other wildlife photographers out there.
Do you keep a nature journal?
You should.
I do. And that’s how I am able to spill out such detailed information about the of moose. Compiling notes and thoughts and observations begins to reveal patterns. And it’s these patterns of behavior that allows us to be consistently successful at what we do.
