Close Encounters

Doris and her family stayed with us at Bondi over the Easter Weekend.  Making use of the Park Pass we include with all our rentals, they spent quite a lot of time in Algonquin Park.

She recently sent me these photos, which show just how close our guests were to the largest land mammal in North America -- the Algonquin Park moose.

Here on the lawn at Bondi, they saw whitetail deer, and on a short hike along our own private nature trails were introduced to both the beakwork of the pileated woodpeckers and the claw marks left on beech trees by climbing bears.  Loons and spring peepers serenaded them, too.

Our guests frequently comment that they see more wildlife here on our property than they do in the Park, simply because our trails are often less crowded and busy during the summer season.  We are right next door to the Park, so that's no big surprise -- our local wolf pack is actually resident in the Park for part of the year.

But one thing we rarely see here are moose. They don't share ranges with the deer, and since we have a lot of deer, we don't have a lot of moose.

Not to worry -- an early morning drive into the Park will often fill in any gaps in that department!

As an aside, Doris took her Napster artwork to her English class, where she gave a talk about our famous artistic cat.  She is heading up Napster's Fan Club in Switzerland.