Only relation to turning is that I was delayed in hanging laundry by a
natural-edge bowl I didn't care to leave hanging on the chuck.

While hanging the towels, I got one of those corner-of -eye motion
sensations. Nothing out on the edge of the woods, though. Continuing to
hang, I got a motion sensation and momentary darkening. Look left and up,
no clouds. Look up and right, and there's a yearling bald eagle, swinging
on motionless wings, and spiraling lower - toward my little dog!

HERE SASCHA!

Nice to know our local pair raised one last year. Year before, they didn't.
But even a yearling spans four feet.

Last seen going west toward the river, whence he came when he saw my dog, I
guess.

"George" george@least wrote in :

Only relation to turning is that I was delayed in hanging laundry by a
natural-edge bowl I didn't care to leave hanging on the chuck.

While hanging the towels, I got one of those corner-of -eye motion
sensations. Nothing out on the edge of the woods, though. Continuing
to hang, I got a motion sensation and momentary darkening. Look left
and up, no clouds. Look up and right, and there's a yearling bald
eagle, swinging on motionless wings, and spiraling lower - toward my
little dog!

HERE SASCHA!

Nice to know our local pair raised one last year. Year before, they
didn't. But even a yearling spans four feet.

Last seen going west toward the river, whence he came when he saw my
dog, I guess.


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 won't mention the deer in the neighborhood since they have become
a problem all over MO. Or the fox, or raccoons...

Patriarch wrote:
"George" george@least wrote in :


Only relation to turning is that I was delayed in hanging laundry by a
natural-edge bowl I didn't care to leave hanging on the chuck.

While hanging the towels, I got one of those corner-of -eye motion
sensations. Nothing out on the edge of the woods, though. Continuing
to hang, I got a motion sensation and momentary darkening. Look left
and up, no clouds. Look up and right, and there's a yearling bald
eagle, swinging on motionless wings, and spiraling lower - toward my
little dog!

HERE SASCHA!

Nice to know our local pair raised one last year. Year before, they
didn't. But even a yearling spans four feet.

Last seen going west toward the river, whence he came when he saw my
dog, I guess.



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

Bill Rubenstein wrote:
Ok, I guess that I have to horn in here.

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.

"Owen Davies" wrote in message
...
.. 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.

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....

Among other comments, wrote:

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

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

"George" george@least wrote:


"Owen Davies" wrote in message
...
. 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.

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....




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

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.

wrote in message
oups.com...
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

In article HANee.17$U01.12@trnddc07,
Lobby Dosser wrote:

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

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.

Smiling to selfLast 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...

Owen Lowe wrote:

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.


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.

In article JRYee.1402$941.412@trnddc08,
Lobby Dosser wrote:

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?

Owen Lowe wrote:

In article JRYee.1402$941.412@trnddc08,
Lobby Dosser wrote:

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? )

"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:n2_ee.1090$nX1.844@trnddc09...
Owen Lowe wrote:

In article JRYee.1402$941.412@trnddc08,
Lobby Dosser wrote:

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? )

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....

George wrote:

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.

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

"George" george@least wrote:

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....



The foot stomping vibrations probably alert it.

"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:kU7fe.1095$Fn1.807@trnddc03...
"George" george@least wrote:

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....



The foot stomping vibrations probably alert it.


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