Wildlife Watch!

Why did the turkeys cross the road?  It’s hard to tell and I’m no wild turkey expert, but the flock (?) that lives in our neighborhood seems to cross the road because a motorized vehicle is coming down it.  They don’t dawdle or anything, but they do seem to be there when you go into town and then again when you come back from town.  I imagine them standing around, sending text messages and playing Angry Birds on their smart phones, when the designated look-out gobbles “Car!  Everyone act natural.  On my mark, we’ll wonder into the road, crossing at a 37 degree diagonal just like the last 28 times.  Got it?  Annnnnnd go!”

Here the turkeys changed it up a bit: there on four (4) turkeys on the left side of the road and seven (7) or eight (8) on the right side.

We’ve also seen lots of white-tail deer (does and fawns) standing around looking innocent or playing this same game, but their schtick is to act surprised that you’re there and sometimes a bit confused as to what they’re to do next or which route would be best at this juncture.

The corner post where the garden fence meets the fence bordering the National Forest. We have all winter to learn proper fence mending techniques.

In other wildlife news, a cougar was spotted in the area a few weeks ago and it ate a couple of a neighbor’s goats and a bear knocked down one of our garden fence posts to muck about in the compost and destroyed a bird feeder just 2 days before we moved in!  So, we don’t let the Beastie Grrrlz out unattended at night and we bring in the bird feeders.   I guess it’s been years since there has been this much wildlife action on the property, but with the drought and probably the fires the critters are hungry.  We’re told by the Alexanders (who sold us their wonderful property) that there are also foxes about, but there’s not enough water for skunks like the poor fellow who spent our first week here bloating up to magnificent proportions on Hwy 93.