Feathered Overcast

"George" wrote in news:427a4a51$1 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net:

We miss the pair of owls that used to live in the palm trees the neighbor had to remove. The squirrel population is up, and there was a 36" garden snake sliding around the front patio this afternoon. He would have been owl food for certain, last year.

Glad to know the eagles are doing all right, and that your dog missed being dinner.

Patriarch

Ok, I guess that I have to horn in here.

We live on the edge of a small town. Our neighborhood is on a dead end street with 7 houses but it really is city, not country. We each have something like 3/4 acres.

We've had a pair of great horned owls who have returned here every year for the past 10 years or so. They always seem to have 2 babies. Several years ago their tree came down -- it was dead and fell. One of the neighbors built a platform and climbed the next tree over to put it up. They got the hint! Sometimes they will hang a dead rabbet over a limb and when they get bored, they get on a neighbor's roof and look down through the skylight to see what is going on.

We also have a pair of turkeys -- both female -- anybody who thinks gay is a learned trait just doesn't understand. They've been walking around the neighborhood like they own it. I've had to creep along the road because they wouldn't move over.

One turkey (a number of years ago) learned to walk up the stairs to our deck (about 14 of them), jump up on the railing and eat from the bird feeder. When she jumped back down to the deck it shook the whole house. Then she'd calmly walk down the stairs and disappear into the woods.

We've also had a lone hawk which has lived here for maybe 15 years.

Then, we are a short drive from Clarksville MO. There is a lock and dam on the Mississippi river there so that the water does not freeze. The golden eagles and bald eagles winter there and during the right conditions you can see hundreds (really) of them sitting in the trees and fishing.

And, I w> "George" wrote in news:427a4a51$1 snipped-for-privacy@newspeer2.tds.net: > >

Might as well add mine.

My wife and I live on a marsh about 400 feet square roughly in the geographic center of a Florida city of more than 100,000 people. We have the usual cardinals, jays, thrushes, mockingbirds, and so on. And more. (The vultures always make me want to buy a sailplane.) One day three years ago, we found 23 wood storks standing around in the marsh; that's more than 2 percent of the world's supply. Two sandhill cranes visit the marsh daily and occasionally march out across our lawn, and we now have a pair of hawks living in the micro-woods next to the marsh. One afternoon last autumn, a bobcat chased one of the squirrels across our back yard; missed him, but we saw the cat again the next morning. And here is why I am being cagey about which city it is: I don't want anyone knowing about the other cat we've seen twice--a Florida panther! There are only about 100 of them left.

We moved here from the center of a New Hampshire town where 2500 people were jammed into just 25 square miles. Some nights, it is quieter here than it was there, except for the frogs. During the day it's actually safer to walk across to the mailbox than it was to walk over to the Post Office there; there are fewer cars on this short residential lane.

But I still miss New England summers.

Owen Davies

I live in a townhouse, and have a pair of doves nesting in a large flower pot that sits on the dividing wall between mine and my neighbors patios. Have had an owl of some type in a nearby tree, but lately the squirrel population has exploded. Come to think of it, havn't heard that owl for awhile...

2500 in 25 square miles? Jammed in?! I live in "beautiful downtown Burbank", which makes your NH town seem like a wilderness.

It's amazing how much wildlife makes it's way in and through our "civilized" urban areas. I can drive a few miles to a water treatment facility/japanese garden of a few acres at the right time of year and see dozens of white egrets resting in the trees and water on their way south. This in the middle of a valley of a hundred or so square miles with a population of over 2 MILLION.

Big controversy up here as to whether we have cougars. Reminds me of the Sasquatch searches. A print here, some scat there, and never a camera when you need it.

If we don't, we must have a few females being murdered in the woods around here....

Well, there was a certain amount of irony in that description. A lot of places make that town seem like a wilderness, not least among them the Florida city in which we now live. No doubt I should have used a smiley.

Owen

We've had coyotes riding the light rail to the airport. So far no reports of coyotes going through security. :o)

Certain amount of tounge-in-cheek to mine as well :) Actually, a lot if it is "small town envy". I dream of retiring to the country, preferably Hawaii, San Diego or Florida, but away from their cities someday.

=================== There was some "country" close to San Diego back in the 60's when I was out there, but you have to get about an hour's drive out in any direction before you find much in the way of open acreage. Before the bridge was built, the Strand was pretty desolate, but no more!

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

As well, we've had a couple recent sighting reports of cougars - one in southern Washington (Battle Ground was it?) - and one in the hills east of Newberg. (A cougar was stalking a woman walking her small dog - it didn't take it's stare off the dog. She picked the dog up and stomped her feet, waved her free arm and shouted until it retreated.)

Maybe 6 months ago I was driving south on I-5, passing the Charbonneau or Woodburn/Canby (the one just after the Willamette bridge south of Wilsonville) exits and I spotted a traffic killed animal on the side of the road. Light brown - thought it was a deer. No, the tail was too long. A coyote. No, color wasn't right and again the tail - too long. Damn, that thing looked like a house cat on steroids. Oooooo, a cougar.

Last weekend my 6 year old and I were planting some flower seeds at the end of the walkway to our front porch. Was packing up our implements of green thumbery and had just picked up the garden tool box to take it back to the garage. Took 2 steps and noticed a 2' stick on the sidewalk about 8 feet in front of me... 'cept my mind said it didn't really look like a stick. A snake. SNAKE! the mind said. Oh, a garter snake - but a fat and healthy one. He wasn't too happy about being spotted and prodded along by a wooden stick - took a short strike at my daughter and another at me. Man, even though I knew it was non-poisonous that striking movement really got my heart pumping. We decided to just let him meander off on his own but now I can't help scanning around the grass for that 2' stick. I reassured myself, wife and daughter that he was a good thing to have around if for nothing else than keeping the slugs at bay. Plus, he grew to 2', appeared healthy and we had never seen 'im before, so we likely won't see 'im again. At least that's what I keep saying...

Wow! Wilsonville. That's in pretty close. When I lived down the valley, we had them in the foothills of the Cascades, but there's plenty of range for them there. Even the foothills around Newberg and Mac wouldn't surprise me, but Willsonvile - Canby - Woodburn is all pretty thickly populated.

Used to get snakes in the house all the time down in Scio. Dogs'd go nuts trying to root them out from under furniture.

Oh, now why'd you have to go and say that?

Guess you don't want to hear about the snake ball in the culvert under the driveway, huh? :o)

One of my favorite creatures is the seven plus foot gopher snake which lives and lays eggs in my shavings heap next to the garden. Since she became a regular, I haven't had any real furry critter problems smaller than a deer. Used to be I'd have to take the varmint shooter out a couple times a year. Don't use a .22 hornet on groundhog, BTW, very messy. Get the kid's .22 long.

SWMBO stomps her feet and tells the snake when she's entering the garden. I keep telling her the snake can't hear, but she says it's a woman-to-woman thing....

Thanks so much. My wife and I love snakes and are seldom so pleased as when we find a blacksnake sunning himself on the lawn, a couple of ringneck snakes in mid-courtship, or--only once thus far, alas--a corn snake hiding in the cut-off frond stubs attached to one of our palm trees. Snakes get such bad press that it's always a pleasant surprise to find someone saying something fair--and by definition that pretty much means good--about them.

Owen Davies

The foot stomping vibrations probably alert it.

Yep, told her to do that to help the feminine telepathy.