Moose two bulls castle mountain crop watermarkHappy New Year! Thanks for stopping by and for those returning, thanks for your support in 2012! It was my best year to date with visits from over 110 different countries! I had several amazing wildlife experiences resulting in a few of the photos you see here. It will be hard to top 2012, but I’m looking forward to seeing what develops in 2013 and sharing my photos and stories with you here.

On one of my recent trips to the mountains I watched a pack of wolves slowly wander along a frozen river and took in a beautiful sunrise as the moon set over the mountains. I also came across these two bull moose in a large meadow surrounded by mountains.  Moose in the Bow Valley ecosystem are the hardest of the ungulates to find and it’s even more rare to see more than one adult together at a time. However, this past year I have seen more moose than ever before and there is evidence to suggest that their numbers will steadily increase in the park over the next decade (as long as rail and vehicles strikes can be minimized).

These two large males just came through the rutting season. Just before the start of the rut, their testosterone levels surge and they essentially become the human equivalent of an Olympic caliber athlete on performance enhancing drugs. For over a month they battled other males, wander large distances to find reproductively active females and hardly eat a thing, all  for the opportunity to breed. The end of the season is marked by a gradual decrease in their testosterone levels. They no longer view each other as competition but instead, periodically seek out the company of other males and forage together.  These two spent the day trying to replenish their energy reserves by eating and resting together in a large meadow. The mountain in the background is known as Castle Mountain, which on its own is one of my favourite mountains to photograph in Banff National Park. Add in a sunny day with clear skies, a great vantage point and a couple of moose and it was the perfect recipe for getting a good photograph.