Sorry Mike, I don't see a maple. Just your walking stick stuck in the ground on the right. ;-)

Did the elk take a dust bath off to the left or is that where he "signed" with a hoof print? Might be time to look into cougar or wolf urine for during the rut.

tj

He may have taken a dust bath there but most of it was caused by his hooves kicking dirt and branches out on the driveway out of sight on the left.
He has been roaming around with two cows, but my neighbor down the road saw him with 5 yesterday. This could get worse, and I'm in a no shooting area. They hang out in the 40 acres of woods adjacent to me and a sort of a greenbelt from the bluff, where I'm at, down to the highway in the Cedar River valley.
Here's what he did to a Pinus bungeana, higher up than my head.
Elk are a lot bigger than deer!
Mike
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I'm getting deer buck rubs too. It must be because I have the only ponds up on the ridge I'm on.
Mike
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Thuja plicata

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Alnus rubra