Moose Airlines

A ride down to "Chicken International" Air Strip almost any day of the week, any hour of the day will provide a good opportunity to visit with one of the local "flight attendants" - a moose! Not sure if there is any organized airline other than the private planes and choppers that come and go from here, but for sure if there are, they should be named "Moose Air." If I were talking about a real airline (which I'm not) what would the flight attendants wear? Goofy hats with big ears and antlers? Furry brown costumes with long beards, knobby knees and hoof shoes? Who knows! The point here is that whenever a plane does come or go there is nearly always a moose standing by to meet and greet. If they are in the brush or the ponds that line the far side of the runway, I think that's pretty cool. But if they decide to wait for the next scheduled arrival mid runway, then I hope and pray I am so not on that flight. If a bird in the engine forces a plane to land in the Hudson River, where on earth does a plane wind up that smacks into a moose upon touchdown?

Anyway, we took the quad down to the strip on a quiet morning, and sat as close as we could for nearly a half hour just watching and listening in the otherwise silence to the moose wading around one of the ponds and munching vegetation. If you've never had the opportunity to be this up close and personal with a munching moose, maybe I can help you out...assuming of course that at some point in your life you went down on the farm and fed a carrot to a horse out of your open outstretched hand. Well, the moose sounds a lot like the horse chomping on the carrot- only add the sound of doing so at or below the surface of the water. Sort of a combo of chomping down a carrot and bobbing for an apple at the same time. If there are no other sounds at the time, this is a perfectly symphonic sound of nature and a joy for the eyes and the ears all at once. I can't do sound on the slide shows yet, but what I tried to do was shoot a relatively unencumbered and unedited series of the moose migrating around the pond and having a splendid time doing lunch. She kept tabs on us, but never really paid us much attention and we made a point of being quiet and leaving her to enjoy the meal and the cool water in relative peace and harmony. So imagine the sounds as best you can...and watch the flight attendant for moose air take a lunch break....