Deer scat looks like a pile of raisinettes. Moose poop looks like a pile of Milk Duds (well more the elongated, like Peanut M&M’s).

I have been seeing a lot of Milk DUds in the past week. In our front yard and in the woods behind our house.

It was funny to see Dave Burke’s post this morning about seeing a moose while driving in So. Burlington. (Dave lives about 1/2 hour away from me here in Vermont). It is that time of year for sure.

My closest moose encounter was a few years ago when Rich adn I were hiking up on the Long Trail (that goes from the southern end of VT to the Northern, along the Green Mt.). THis was just a day hike though. The access trail where we were is an old logging road. Not 5 minutes out of the car and a female moose came out of the woods on to the trail and started heading up in the same direction. She stayed in front of us for about 20 minutes and did not care about us at all. She stopped to munch on some grass and pee along the way. We however were pretty nervous. It was rutting season (mating). We kept trying to scare her off the trail. THe problem is that if a male moose wanted to get to her, he would literally just run us over. They are extremely dangerous during rutting season. They are enormous animals and quite powerful and I have heard some pretty scary stories. I knew that I did not want to get in the way of a horny male moose. Was I looking over my shoulder? Absolutely! Finally after about 20 minutes, she went a different direction and we continued on up the trail.

It was really wonderful to be able to really watch this moose so closely for so long. To study her body and her movement.