Where The Deer And The Antelope And The Bear Live
Ahhhhhhhhh, springtime.
A time, when Momma's are having babies in the Wilderness and on the farms.
A time, when driving down the highway, coming around a corner you came upon, in all their newfound freedom, a kid frolicking with other kids, with there Mommas close by watching. A time, when there are pens side by side, one with Mommas and babes, the next with Momma-to-be's (Momma's-to-be), and the last with the Billy Goats ignoring the others. We pulled over, rolled the windows down, and just watched and listened. Every so often, you'd hear one of them bleat and Momma'd come arunning: ) Goats were rather fun to watch, especially when they got excited in their play and would kick their hind legs up.. Just for fun
A time, when you see nothing but mile after mile of road, looking like a newly ironed black and yellow stripped ribbon. Perfect time to take a quick nap.
Or so you thought.
SLOW DOWN.......whoa........stop!
Did you see that? There it is? What is it?
I see 3 heads..really dark long nose, black shiny fur. THAT ONE IS HUGE!
It's a black bear..Once it took note that we weren't moving, the others came out of the
woods and they settled along the roadside and started munching on the tall grass. I hadn't realized bears ate grass. Knew they ate berries, etc, but not grass. They didn't look starved or even that they had been holed up for the winter. They all had shiny black coats...you just wanted to run your fingers through it. (NO, we did NOT get out of the vehicle.) A few miles later we were going thru the curvy roads so we weren't going very fast when I spotted more movement in the high grass. Stopped again and watched a Sow and her twin cubs having breakfast. One closest to the woods got nervous and headed off to hide.2nd one was a bit curious until momma growled, a low rumbling growl, and it took off for the woods. Momma looked to the right where #1 went and then to the left where #2 went-decided # 2 needed more protection and off she went. Makes my heart beat faster just remembering. It sure was a gorgeous sight. We saw a total of 12 bear in all on our trip up to Timmons, Ontario, across, and down to the outskirts of Trois-Rivieres, Quebec.
A time to heed the warnings:
Whilst in Canada, we did see a Moose, a Reindeer, an Elk, and a Snowmobiler. Funny thing, they were all on a yellow background that warned drivers that you were in the area where they might be seen. We didn't see any of them in the flesh out in the woods..even tho there were still patches of snow..none was long enuf to sustain a snowmobile.
We DID get to see both a single moose and 3 elk when we were traveling thru the CO and AZ mountains. Other animals we saw, some in the wild and some in fenced areas: llamas, angora goats, bison, buffalo, white-tail deer, mule deer, horses/colts, cows in grass so tall that you could hardly see them, calves, sheep and lambs,
Driving thru the flooded mid-west, we saw a deer swimming for shore. Only dry place for miles around was the median next to the highway and there was a fence between the median and the highway. It did have a bit of dry ground to climb up onto.
One other animal of note, we had just left Grand Junction, CO and were up on the Umcompahgre , near the top of one of the mountains, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
THERE ! THERE ! THERE!
I couldn't tell what it was. Except for the head sticking up over the edge of the hill, very close to the road, there wasn't anything else to be seen of the animal. Then it turned and looked at us.
" Would you hurry up and get past me, I want to cross this road. I have mountains to climb and you're slowing me down."
It had a long very thin face and a grayish beard, short spiky ears.
Ears? No, those are horns.
OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!
Horns.
It's a Mountain Goat!!!!!!
What a Joy to see.
I didn't even have time to grab the camera.
Time to close for today
Butterfly