You ever wander away as a young tot?

all the time. I used to go exploring in the forests nerby. My mom was afraid of BEARS. We lived in an area that was pretty much bear free (unless one considered the Hershey Bears).

I became fascinted with the outdoors at a very early age. I remember taking a tablet and pencils to draw bugs and things that Id see in my walkabouts.

Uncle Stash taught me tracking because he ws a desert prospector and had to deal with snakes and coyotes and pumas.

Wow...they had all of that in Pennsylvania? Oh, yes! the Pennsylvania puma..rare breed.

Uncle Stazj was a prospector in New Mexico. He was a geologist who taught at Penn State and prospected in the summer. He made a fortune in uranium. He was one of the first geologists who discovered Carnotite sandstone deposits and another salt called Gummite.
I would see him holidays and he would tell stories.


PS, we do have pumas in PA, theyve returned recently via NY and New England.

PS, can you show me where I said anything about Pumas in Pa??
Uncle Stazj (Stosh) would tell stories and by the time I was 13 I was allowed to accompany him for a coupla summers into the Backass areas of NM and Utah. I learned how to shine a black light wherever you sit down at night (Scorpions glow bluish under ultraviolet light)

Um...I was attempting at being humor-Russ. I do that on occasion. I was going for the alliteration.

I'm surprised to find out that there actually ARE pumas in PA. Also, as I am to understand, puma is also known as cougar (and perhaps catamount?).

Never knew that catamount was another name for cougar. We have a "catamount Road" several townships South in Chester County.

Theyve shot video of black cougars in the little forests around here. We are south of a town called Strasburg (near the area where the movie "WITNESS" was filmed. There are little (10 nd 20 acre plots f woods (we all grow our own lumber in these woods so they lay untouched for 40 years or so and the wildcats just move in nd eat deer.
The black cougars must have some kind of advantage (maybe its a night thing cause thats when they hunt).

When my sister was small, they kept her on a leash if we went out in public. Literally, a leash to a halter around her shoulders. Otherwise, she'd be gone.

Jeez, the things you can learn online. Apparently there's about 40 names for these large beasties.

"The cougar is known by many names, such as the puma, mountain lion, catamount or panther. Despite their large size, the cougar is not a true “big cat”. The cougar is a member of the felidae family, as opposed to the panthera family as of the tiger and lion. The major difference between the two families is the panthera family’s ability to roar.

Felidae cats can not roar, instead make noises such as purrs, hisses, chirps and screams."

screaming of pumas is a sound that , once you hear it, you find it hard to go back to sleep. Foxes creep me out too, for their territory calls, they make loud whiney noises that sound like a baby crying.
Wawawawaaaa.

Uncle Stosh had an Airstream trailer that, for its time, was really spiffed out. It was a teeny apartment with an office where the back bunks were. When ever wed hear a cougar it would start waaay off and then get closer an closer. At which time Uncle stosh would break out his 44 pistol and I had a 20 gage double barrel.
Then hed get into a story about how cougars would try to get in by crawling undernath trailers and claw their way in by shredding the flooring . Thats why he bought an AIrstream, it was Aluminum metal underneath. (He was soild bullshit but it worked on me).
Reverie, dayum I remember him pulling this trailer with this old Dodge Power Wagon. It wasa real pig with everything geared down but it was like a Swiss Army knife. It had more gizmos and pumps an power jacks and **** than the Batmobile. I dont think they make power wagons anymore but I always wanted to get into the truck and wait out the cougar screams. The trailer was aluminum but the truck was built like an aircraft carrier

Thanks for trip into the deep woods. Feel like I went camping.

Mountain lions have been officially absent from the Great Smoky Mountain National Park for 30 years. However, in the late 80's I was there off-trail hiking near Tremont with a girf and found a skull that sure looked like a felidae. I took it (illegally) to my veterinarian friend who confirmed it. At the time, I wasn't aware that it would have been a big deal. If I had known that, I would've left the skull there, marked a path to it, then alerted a ranger. Hindsight, eh?

I used to camp out alone a lot. Many nights I've either been sitting by the campfire or asleep and had the doodoo scared out of me by a barn owl. If you've heard one, you know. Once I was camping out in the hills of TN and one started screaming from what seemed like only about 30 feet away. This was before I'd figured out what was making the sound. It sounded like Satan's meanest demon was after me. I kept the fire going all night and my 9mm in my lap the whole time. I felt stupid when I finally figured out what was making that noise.

When my parents came back from Iceland, we settled in a 'suburban' area that wasn't very densely populated. We had rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks but that was extent of wildlife. Move up to 1985 when mr. glitterbag and I moved to Annapolis, suddenly we were awash in wildlife. I still like seeing deer, groundhogs and raccoons, but due to the rapid housing development we are beginning to see more creatures. Wooded areas are shrinking, and now fox roam around during the day, raccoons have been spotted spread eagle near BBQ grills and a few puma have been spotted. Black bears and ferrel pigs have been cropping up, personally I haven't seen bears or pigs.

What I have heard is that frightening noise that fox can make. We woke up one time around 3 in the morning to a sound that mimicked a human being butchered. We called the police, they said it was probably the fox. My neighbors have lost cats to the fox, so I usually urge folks to keep their cats inside. Yes I know the cats make a racket, but it's nothing like the sound of a fox trying to pull a cat out of it's hiding place.

I know that coyotes have been spotted in the northern part of the county, Baltimore and Washington D.C. and it's only a matter of time before we start seeing them here. We also see birds that normally summer farther north, like the white owls (can't remember the real name) and birds of prey circle my yard when the dogs are out. Every once in a while, probably a young bird swoops down and then realizes the dogs aren't easy pickens. However, if I had a small
dog, I would never let it off the leash. Those birds mean business and they're hungry.

we keep boxes for barn owls and saw whet owls around the farm. We have an old silo that is a kind of halfway house for owls and a coopers hawk.

Keeping a " farmstead natural area" is neat but it allows you into the part of the world of animals that is not what we see in video clips.
We have pigeons in the barn and my wife keeps feeders for the birds. Coopers hawks look on pigeons and song birds as part of their menu.

Saw whet owls fly so close to the ground at supersonic speeds that they rap into things and knock themselves silly. The MD and Pa animal rehabilitators probably hve more saw whet owls that are being nursed back to health at any one time than they do with all other species combined.
Im thinking that saw whets will be extinct because of this propensity to T-bone into human technology. Then, however, e realize that they , as a species are as fecund as a cockroch, so then we dont mourn the species, they sem to stay ahead of extinction by always laying more eggs than wipeouts claim them.


We just were visited by the annual flock of "biker birds" (cedar waxwings)
We have so many crab apple trees that bear these tasty littl fruits. The fruits, after winter freezing start to ferment and big flocks of cedar waxwings, migrating north, top over and get hammered on our trees. They are comical tok watch when they get stoned. A waxing will be standing on a branch, clearly in a DUI condition. All of a sudden the bird will sort of pass out and swing on its pwrch (It just seems to "pass out" for a second and itll wind up hanging upside down till it starts to flap an rights itself.

Waxwings are my favorite. They remind us of the joys of moderation.

Sorry for starting something other than what the thread was about. Alsthough, I hve to say, even with an advanced state of ADD as a kid, I could focus in on a few things of deep passion and nature watching was an activity I could lose myself in for hours on end. Then that followed by drawing. (All this was used in my therapy as a college sophomore)

The waxwing story reminds me of a childhood cherry tree (Prunus serotina, if Wiki is right) that was within my wilderness roaming domain. I would go there to get my fill of ripe wild cherries. Sometimes there would be birds (can't remember which) getting drunk as a skunk on the fermented ones. Wobbling and weaving around on the ground. I'd almost forgotten about that. Watching them was as much fun as eating the cherries.

Oh, and bobcat. We had a fair number of them, too. When I was very young, I saw an old photo of some relatives posing with a dead mountain lion and a couple of bobcat in the bed of their pickup. Never understood why somebody would want to kill such beautiful creatures.

This should strike you as funny .. I am driving through a town that is close to city like ... in other words not a lot of wooded area. It is evening not too late I spy a fox slinking across the street. Then I see a cat...yes what appears an ordinary house cat slowly following the fox as if hunting it.

I couldn't believe it the cat was tracking and hunting down the fox and the fox was trying to get away from the cat.

Oh I believe it alright, the right size cat versus the right size fox could be a life or death battle. If the fox wins, he drags the cat off to be eaten, if the cat wins, he drags it off and deposits it on the some lucky human's patio. My thought is that cats are genetically programmed to hunt, but they have plenty of cat chow at home. They hunt by instinct, fox hunt to survive.

Oh, I hope that cat had back up.

yeh but usually, animals of prey usually do not "push the envelope" and challenge animals of the same size or those even slightly smaller. They seem to instinctually know that any wound , (EVEN IF THE ANIMAL OF PREY WINS THE FIGHT), could prove fatal by just slowing the snimal down a tad.
Usually, when an animal hunts, they pick on things waaay smaller than themselves or those so configured that the prey animal is known to be incapable of a formidable defense.

Thats why most carnivores or omnivores will leave things like porxupines ALONE, or big hawks and eagles will NOT attack chickens because a chicken can inflict a really bad wound .
DOGS< on the other hand, when their genomes were gradully altered into an animal thats become almost entirely dependent on us, will attack almost anything and sometimes get really boogered up.
My first catahoula used to try to molest horses in the fields, not knowing that a horse is equipped with really powerful legs and iron sneakers that could easily kill a 70 lb dog. Or often we'd see a dog , whose muzzle is loaded with porcupine quills that could result in the dog starving to death.

Dogs are really pieces of work, the Russian studies hve shown (by successive breeding of fur foxes), that through successive generations the foxes retain genes that retain the condition oof "neotony" which are "Puppy like fetures" and they acquire new genes that include floppy ears, piebald colors, and other SNP features that show that the process of "Domestication" is often the losing of wild "advantges" in stealth, speed, and camouflage.(Not to mention attitude).

DOmestic dogs, in the wild, are almost always a bd thing. They will either band up with other losers and then molest stock and start killing stock nimals "Just fr the sick hell of it" or theywill, not knowing thir limits, try to attack n animal of prey n get really torn up.

YEH, killing animals for the hell of it is no better than some pack of domestic dogs hunting down livestock.
I had an employee out in Denver who had a "trophy room" with all kind of stuffed big game. SOme of them would be considered lmost protected today.
His kids, when they were young, were afraid of this room.

I despise trophy hunting, even if it's fishing. As much as I love to hunt and fish, the killing part eventually wore me out. But if I do kill something, by damn I eat it. I don't mount it. Killing, even for food, isn't something to be proud of. What I like so much about hunting and fishing is the hours of solitude and the extended mental focus, escaping from the pressures of civilization, etc.