Wild Animals I Have Known

[Tharmas]

The title of this thread is the title of a book I loved as a boy, although it was already a venerable classic back then. It’s by Ernest Thompson Seton (co-founder of the Boy Scouts) and was published in 1898.

I intend this thread to be for stories of wild (or wild-ish) animals.

For instance:

Two nights ago my wife was putting out the dogs to do their business before bed. Suddenly I heard her screaming at our big dog at the top of her lung. “SLUGGO NO NO STOP DROP IT!” It turned out Sluggo had caught an Opossum, or possum, on the driveway. My wife said it was dead, because it was just lying there in the driveway. But no, I said, it’s just playing possum. It will be gone in the morning, and sure enough it was.

It reminded me of the previous time our dogs had caught a possum. We thought it was dead and I threw it in the trashcan. The next day when I took out the trash and looked in the can, two beady little red eyes were staring at me. Sure enough, the possum was alive and well. I tipped the can to let it out and it went scurrying away.

“Playing possum” turns out to be a neat trick, and it works. They give off a noxious odor when “dead” and that seems to be what encourages the attacker to drop them and leave them alone.

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Incidentally I just got the book for my Kindle for free (had some credits with Amazon). I'll see if it's as good as I once thought.

 

[southernhybrid]

I have many wild animals living near me or in my yard. I especially like chameleons, and frogs. The frogs sing me to sleep in the summer, as we have a couple of small garden ponds close to the house. I have been known to talk to chameleons, although they haven't talked back to me yet. They are such beautiful little creatures, and as a plus, they eat insects.

Our funniest wild visitor was a juvenile raccoon. We had a bird feeder close to the house that kept getting emptied quickly. Then one evening, I looked out the window just before dark, only to see a small raccoon climb the feeder poll, then shake the feeder until almost the entire contents were on the sidewalk that circles the pool. He quickly slid down the poll and gobbled up the sunflower seeds. As funny as it was to watch him, we decided to move the feeder out further and then purchased a raccoon baffle, so our greedy little friend could no longer steal the bird's food.

We also have some fig trees in the back of our property. When the figs are ripe, we have many wild visitors. We've had deer, who can only reach the low hanging fruit, along with the occasional group of wild turkeys. There are a countless number of birds, and of course, in the early evening we can see several sets of raccoon eyes sitting in the trees, enjoying a nice snack of figs.

We have an abudundance of birds, but two of my current favorites are an adorable pair of tiny woodpeckers, who visit the suet feeder several times a day. Last week, we saw one of them feeding the other. I think romance must be in the air.

Naturally we are infested with chipmunks and squirrels. I actually like squirrels, despite their tendency to steal bird's eggs and baby chicks, when the nest was poorly placed by bird parents. But, I despise chipmunks, as they tunnel all over the place and make a mess in my husband's shelves of bonsais. He hates them too.

Sometimes we have large turtles who visit and slowly ramble around the property. I saw one eating dog shit once, Ew. I guess turtles aren't too fussy about what they eat. Then again, to them dog shit might be a special treat.

I once saw a pack of coyotes at the corner of the tiny dead end street that's just one house away from mine. It was early morning and I had two tiny dogs with me, so I pulled them back toward the house and quietly slipped back inside. There's a wetland of at the end of that tiny street. Hopefully the coyotes will stay where they belong.

I'm sorry to say that I no longer have bats flying over the house at dusk in the summer. Considering what we humans have done to the planet, I worry about no longer seeing bats. Who will eat all of those mosquitoes, if not for bats? Besides, bats are really cool to watch. I miss them.

But, speaking of spooky looking flying things, some of my other favorite birds are vultures. I refer to them as the clean up crew. They do their job of cleaning up dead deer and possums who are actually dead, and they do it so willingly. Evolution is amazing. We have a lot of roadkill in Georgia, so I appreciate them for that. I also love to watch them gliding high in the sky. And, when a large group of them is sitting high in a tree, they do look really cool in a spooky Halloween sort of way.

So many varieties of birds visit my place, so it's hard to have one favorite. But, how could anyone resist the ruby throated Humming Birds that come to visit in spring and hang around until early fall. I especially like to watch them fight over the feeder, but I think they're just playing around, because as soon as a storm starts brewing, they all cooperate for a good drink, before taking cover in nearby trees or bushes.

Those are the wild animals that share my little world, but there is one other wild animal that I met in even more personal way, unfortunately. In 1975, while walking along a nature trail, just across the street from the beach at Padre Island, Texas, a pigmy rattler bit me on the foot, then scurried away.
That was probably the most painfully unpleasant experience of my life, so I'm no fan of rattle snakes, which happen to live in every single US state. I saw another one, just at the edge of the Bay in Destin, Fl. many years ago. My husband was very close by, so I told him he better move if he didn't want to be bitten. Watch out for rattle snakes. They are considered the most ornery of snakes. They bite first, then ask questions later. Well, not literally, but you get the idea. Their bite rarely kills anyone, but it does make you wish that you were dead.

But, I do have one more thought. Are wild animals really that wild when they live among humans, and enjoy our little habitats along with us?

 

[steve_bank]

I thought this was going to be a Griizly Adams sort of thread.

When I was living in North Idaho in the early 90s I heard a ruckus in the early morning outside my front door. A cat screeching for dear life. There was snow on the ground. There was blood on the snow and there were cat paw prints and larger feline prints. A bobcat caught its breakfast,

I was walking around the hills around the town Mullan Id,. I looked up and I was in the middle of a group of elk. They looked me over and walked off. Watching elk from the town café was a popular pastime.