Marty’s photo of the day #4700: Here at the Essen Wildlife Refuge—the 25 acres at the edge of the mountains in Montana that Deb and I protect from hunters, loggers, and four-wheelers—we have always had a consistent population of moose. Sometimes we only see their scat and tracks; other times we will see them in-person on our evening walks. Two weeks ago, I posted a photo of our spring moose. I’ve shot a lot of moose photos over the years, but that time I was concentrating more on not spooking the moose and less on my camera settings and, as a result, the photo I posted was only so-so.

Yesterday, we met the same moose (Martha) on our evening walk. This time we passed by, and when I reached home, I left Deb and our dog (Nellie) inside and went back out into the forest, determined to get a better photo than the one from a few weeks back. Here’s that photo from yesterday.