Critter Watching

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

Hey I just remembered this - saw this just the other day - last time I was down at the main huntin grounds. I have this old cabover pickup truck camper on cement blocks as my little camper, but there are thin wooden rectangular panels on either side which would ordinarily be adjacent to the inside of a truck bed when installed in a pickup. Don't know what they're for. So they are thin and weak and one of them has a lower corner which has been torn away from its mooring where previously glued, although it looks fine just looking at it. I ascertained the panel situation when I went into my camper and found a ball of feathers and a half eaten tweety bird, as well as a dead toad. So I guess a coyote or bobcat is living in my camper when I'm not there. Guess I don't have a problem with it, since the animal is at least clean enough to leave the camper to do its business. Probably yotes. So not really something I saw, other than interesting "sign".

Some good stories above - yeah those owls are amazingly quiet and still.

 

[John828]

Love is in the air....

Getting real close to Spring around my neck of the woods. I just enjoyed a squirrel's foray into the "be fruitful and multiply" command. The robins are back in full force, and I can smell the smell of Spring ever so faintly on the breeze.

Before I submitted this post, I stepped outside for a smoke, and the aforementioned squirrel was barking his little head off. I suppose he was telling the world about his conquest or advertising for another tryst.

 

[mike724]

I looked out my back window, and admired a large red tailed hawk in a dead tree about 80-100 yards out. When the HUGE bird took flight towards my house, I got scared for my mini Dachshound, and ran outside to hopefully grab the dog before the hawk did. But the bird landed about ten yards beyond my back fence, and then returned to the original tree that he flew from with a 3' long green snake in his talons, which he proceeded to peel like a banana and eat. Imagine his eyesight, seeing a green snake in a green viney brush from over 50 yards away!

 

[Smokey Joe]

Critters...

Went out in backyard a couple days ago--we've had complete snow cover for a number of weeks--discovered by the tracks that our compost heap (in winter it's just veggie peels, coffee grounds, and egg shells; in summer it gets mowed grass and vegetation from the garden) has become Field Mouse Central.

So, that's fine--the little beasties have to eat, too.

Anyhow, as I'm standing there having deposited the kitchen compost, looking at all the tracks in the snow, a Cooper's Hawk sails 20' over my head and lands in one of the neighbors' trees. Never been so close to one. My, what a vivid pattern they have on the chest and belly, and my, their legs are really YELLOW!

So, that's fine too--the feathered beasties also have to eat. I imagine that with all the snow they have a hard time finding mice, but the mice had been scampering about on top of the snow at the compost heap. Probably the Cooper's thought it was a free banquet.