Sounds of the Minnesota Moose Rut (recorded by Trailcams)

Year 12

Although we have not reached October, which I personally think of as being the period of the prime moose rut, my local moose appear to think otherwise! Last night, three trailcams I have deep in the Superior National Forest recorded both a huge bull moose, and a cow. At times the moose were only inches from my cameras making visuals impossible. However, the close proximity made hearing the moose very easy. Pay attention … you will hear both the cow and bull in the various videos.

Here is a screenshot from Google Maps which gives you an idea of camera positioning. As noted each camera is within 400 yards of the subsequent camera. I have noted in this blog post’s text if the relevant video snippet includes moose sounds. However, I thought it was worth including all the videos that were recorded over the wee hours of the morning on September 19th from 12:23 am to 1:32 am … regardless of the amount of sound. Each video is 30 seconds in length.

Even non blog subscribers may wish to note the short comments about the sounds one may hear in each video … next to blog subscriber links.

Trailcam #2

  • Video link 1 for blog email subscribers
    • Just breathing sounds
  • Video link 2 for blog email subscribers
    • Cow makes sounds starting at 18 seconds
  • Video link 3 for blog email subscribers
    • Bull makes sounds starting at 4 seconds
    • Other sounds may be from the cow, but she can not be seen
  • Video link 4 for blog email subscribers
    • Just breathing sounds
    • Bull’s beard is within inches of the camera

Trailcam #3

  • Video link 5 for blog email subscribers
    • Bull walking through the bog … water sounds

Trailcam #2

  • Video link 6 for blog email subscribers
    • Isolated grunts from the bull
  • Video link 7 for blog email subscribers
    • Isolated grunts from the bull
  • Video link 8 for blog email subscribers
    • Isolated grunts from the bull

Trailcam #1

  • Video link 9 for blog email subscribers
    • Silence … bull walking through bog
  • Video link 10 for blog email subscribers
    • Mostly silent … some breathing sounds from the bull

For me, this sequence of videos which took place over one hour are amazing. The locations of the trailcams represent years of my learning about forest habitat, and specifically two years of my learning this particular area of the Superior National Forest.  The exact location of each camera is not “dumb luck”. I have been observing the wildlife in this region for a long time, and hiking various trails, including game trails, while paying attention to signs of wildlife. Since June I have seen eight moose with my own eyes, not just via trailcams.

Northstar Nerd, Now Bird Brained!

Background

Posts have been somewhat more infrequent recently on 365DaysOfBirds. I have been working upon a HUGE project to archive content from my old website, NorthstarNerd.Org. This project was forced by the impending shutdown of a hosting service I have used since 2006. I had maintained my old site as an archive to my 28+ years as a web development / software project manager with Honeywell. My projects stretch back to the earliest days of the internet, and I often blogged about the world wide web and knowledge management. Eventually my “new” NorthstarNerd.Org web site will have all my old content.

For the moment, if you are interested, you may use these links from the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine to see my earlier content. Please note, the WayBack Machine can be slow to load content …

Northern Hawk Owl After the Storm

Here are the first archived posts from the old NorthstarNerd.Org archive.  An additional 500 blog posts in PDF format will be added during October and November.

  • eContent (chronologically the last posts)
    • One
    • Two
    • Three
    • Four
    • Five
    • The remainder will be categorized by the these topics
      • Android | iPad | Kindle Fire
      • China
      • College Search
      • Legos
      • Northern Life

Moose Madness at Greenwood

Year 12

Yesterday was a “work day” deep in the Greenwood Boreal Forest Bog. I wanted to set up and drop off my BirdNET-Pi birdsong listening device, and tweak locations/settings of my four trailcams. Given it had been two weeks since I had hiked into this wilderness area, I also swapped out simm cards. Oh my … make sure you watch the two videos of Poppa Moose! He has now moved into the area which is not surprising given all the females and the impending rut.  I have seen 8 moose in person over the summer but Poppa is much bigger than the males I have seen. One cool aside, I met the US Forest Service Ranger / Biologist with responsibility for this region. Given his research priorities and my personal focuses upon Greenwood, this is a nice meetup!

One fun aspect of the morning was having this Broad-Winged Hawk hunt near me for about 15 minutes while I was hiking into the bog. I have watched this family of hawks since late spring. Note the amount of color in the leaves already. Fall is well underway and this hawk will migrate south real soon.