Spent three hours searching for a moose that wasn't even there

Last Tuesday I was driving home from a job near Palmer and saw what I thought was a huge bull moose bedded down just off the Glenn Highway. I pulled over, grabbed my binoculars, and spent a good 45 minutes trying to spot it again through the alders. Texted my buddy who hunts that area to come help me glass it, he showed up and we both stared at the same spot for another hour. Finally he laughed and pointed out it was just a weirdly shaped black spruce stump with some dead branches sticking up like antlers. We must have looked like total idiots to every car that passed. I felt pretty dumb but honestly it was a nice evening out anyway. Has anyone else had a moose sighting turn out to be a tree or rock?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo23619d ago

Ain't it funny how our brains are so wired to see what we want to see that a stump can become a moose.

elizabeth_king19d ago

It really is wild how our brains will just fill in the blanks like that. I think it's that hunter's instinct kicking in before the logical part of your brain catches up. You're out there scanning the brush for any sign of movement and your mind just latches onto the closest thing that could maybe, possibly look like a moose. I've done the same thing with rocks before, stood there for ten minutes thinking a boulder was a bear. It makes you wonder how many "sightings" over the years were just people staring at the wrong lump of dirt.