It’s simply amazing when an animal chooses to stay near you. It simply means that that animal wants your company because he/she trust you.
Last week, some uninvited guests arrived at Roland Rydstrom’s place, Anchorage, Alaska. A mama moose and her two babies surprised Roland from their arrival and decided to spend a day there.
The little creatures roamed around the house and decided to stay in the backyard because they fell in love with Rydstrom’s grass. Rydstrom told that the mama moose and the babies also had their lunch in his garden. To show how innocent and peaceful this situation, Rydstrom photographed everything staying inside and shared on social media, which went viral.
The moose family didn’t even notice when Rydstrom opened the blinds to have a better look. “Right away, I found the Flat Stanley my cousins sent me from Iowa. I had promised my cousins and their elementary school group that I’d take a picture of Flat Stanley with the moose in my yard, but so far in the almost three months I’d been working from home, I hadn’t been home when the moose were here — a very common experience. Flat Stanley had been out on the local hiking trails with me, but so far I’d been unlucky with moose pictures.”
He further explained, “I took the pictures of the moose with Flat Stanley, and took a few without him and went to work. I really expected that the moose would walk away at some point but every time I looked up from my work, they were still there. I could watch directly them from my work spot. It was a great distraction and a fun way to spend the day while I was editing concert footage for my job with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the day, as the moose changed lounging spots or walked away and came back, I’d go back to the window or the open door (the screen door was still closed), to take more pictures of them. They were oblivious to me most of the time (although their ears were up most of the time, so obviously they were alert).”
The Alaska Moose are unique to their region. Male Alaska moose is 40% heavier than the female one and weigh over 635kg. The female Alaska moose weigh about 478kg. Alaska moose are the largest members of the deer family, and they are largest moose in the world.
As they are huge in, the amount they also eat relatively big. In summer, a moose enjoys 73 pounds of food per day, and in winter it’s about 34 pounds.
“They took two quick trips through the neighborhood, but quickly returned to their spots in our backyard,” Rydstrom said. “Most of the time, as you can see from the pictures, they really were just lounging here. A neighbor reported that she’d observed this same moose family running along the road a few miles from our neighborhood earlier that morning. If I’d taken videos early in the morning, you’d have noticed that the mama, in particular, was breathing very heavily. They needed rest, and I think they felt safe to rest here in our backyard.” The moose family had stayed in Rydstrom’s place from around 9 am to 7 pm.
“Note the smile on its face as it knocks over this pot. Sociopath.”
“And just like that, the marigold is knocked over and that baby pretends it didn’t have a thing to do with it…”
“The calves spent a lot of time lounging together. It was cute seeing them lying together and moving with the sun throughout the day”
Generally, moose are not dangerous. But, they can be easily provoked. That’s why Rydstrom stayed inside and recorded the whole scenario. When it comes to mama moose especially, they could be dangerous if they sense anything threatening for the calves.
“As the moose family left and returned to the backyard, they’d nibble on plants, or in the case of the calves — the patio furniture and decorations in our’s and our neighbors’ backyard — just like a baby, putting everything in their mouth,” Rydstrom added. “In fact, our neighbor started turning her decorative patio lights off and on to try to scare the baby who kept trying to eat a light bulb because she was afraid the glass would break in its mouth. The mama loves eating our yellow begonias and the neighbor’s orange begonias; she also loves the leaves on the trees, the astilbe, bleeding hearts (they’ve bloomed and I’m lucky she didn’t eat them that day), and the orange blossom bush’s leaves.”
Another amazing thing which happened was, “Another cow and her calves came running through the backyard near the end of the day. I could hear them running this way, but I was unable to get a video of them through this lounging moose family. The mama and her babies in my pictures jumped up and quickly ran after them. So there were two cows with four calves running through the backyards. It was a lot of action that I was just relaying to one of my friends over the phone.” Unfortunately, Roland was on a call when this happened and couldn’t record this exciting incident.
What happened in Roland’s backyard was a first-hand experience for him. “Usually, they just walk through the yard and nibble on our plants and trees or play in the neighbor’s sprinklers. A few years ago, we thought a mother was about to give birth in the exact lounging spot in my pictures. She was lying down in the sun for several hours with very labored breathing while stretching her legs. But it was a false alarm and she had her twins across the street that night.”
Roland’s partner Cathy also admits that what happened at their yard was pretty amazing and they had experienced nothing like that before. “It happens all of the time for others; we just got lucky this time to experience it ourselves.”
People absolutely adored the photos
