layla: grass at sunset (Default)
Layla ([personal profile] layla) wrote2005-01-16 07:59 pm

The beauty and wonder of nature

This weekend we spent some quality(?) time slogging through hip-deep snow around our 10 acres, trying to tire out the dogs. Lucky, at least, has been bouncing off the walls during the past week, when it's been too cold for them or us to feel like taking walks.

Anyway, as well as lots of beautiful snow-covered scenery, we found an interesting example of nature in action on the frozen creek about 200 yards from our house: an apparently wolf-killed moose. It's a very small moose and I believe it's one of the two calves that have (had) been hanging around the yard this fall and winter.

I can't prove that a wolf or wolves did the deed, since the tracks in the area were so indistinct in the deep, soft snow that I couldn't pick out any obvious wolf tracks. I suppose the moose could have died of starvation or exposure, and been scavenged by foxes and ravens. But it was picked so thoroughly clean -- it looked like piranhas had been at it. And I know we have wolves around here.


You're looking from the back of the moose forward. Its head, the only part that hasn't been picked clean, is twisted to the right and covered with snow. (You can't really see it in the picture.) Its hipbones are sticking up in the foreground of the picture.


Closeup showing the shredded meat on the rib cage.

The beauty and marvel of nature!

[identity profile] thebawmdotcawm.livejournal.com 2005-01-16 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
It looks like wool or some sort of fabric covering the bones. Nice pictures.

[identity profile] senri.livejournal.com 2005-01-16 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Woah... those photos... are really kind of neat.

/freak

[identity profile] divalea.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
The first one looks like a contour drawing of a lobster.

You did not see this much nature close up where you last lived, did you?

[identity profile] laylalawlor.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
You did not see this much nature close up where you last lived, did you?

About the closest thing we got was a squirrel that escaped from one of the feral cats in the neighborhood to stagger onto our lawn and die. (Or rather, lie there having seizures until we took pity on it and put it out of its misery.)

Nature is a bit more in-your-face around here.

[identity profile] laylalawlor.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 09:13 am (UTC)(link)
Thank ya!

It does look alarmingly soft and fuzzy.

[identity profile] laylalawlor.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 09:14 am (UTC)(link)
Fascinating ... yet horrible too.

The rib cage looks strangely cool sticking up from the snow like that. We saw it from a ways off, and it just didn't look ... well, natural. It was obviously something out of place in the quiet blanket of snow.

[identity profile] neosquirrel.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 09:41 am (UTC)(link)
Nature is a bit more in-your-face around here.

Damn straight. Never saw a ribbed carcass before IRL. Just in the old westerns or the cartoons. Now I'm torn from wanting BBQ ribs or just being repulsed by the whole idea.

Back home, deer started coming up to our house and peeking through the windows from time to time, the little perverts.

yaaargh...

[identity profile] vogelein.livejournal.com 2005-01-17 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
... but that's beautiful, in a very macabre way.


Janer

Of course...

[identity profile] vogelein.livejournal.com 2005-01-18 02:07 pm (UTC)(link)
You're not doing much to cross off "Layla being eaten by a pack of hungry wolves" off our collective worry list. ;)

Re: Of course...

[identity profile] laylalawlor.livejournal.com 2005-01-23 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Orion was actually getting really jumpy when we were poking around the wolf kill. I kept pointing out that wolves do not attack healthy human beings. Technically, a wolf could probably take a person (look what dogs can do to us) but luckily THEY don't know that. Children occasionally get attacked by wolves, but Google backs me up that there has never been a documented wolf attack on an adult human being in the entire history of Alaska. So, I'm pretty safe. At least if it DOES happen, I'll make history. ;)