Wildlife in Your Life

We just saw a turkey vulture!!!

I'm not 100% sure -- especially, it seemed huge but I'm not sure if it was turkey-vulture huge. I checked and Ohio is within their range. It looked JUST like this:



We saw some big birds circling a ways away, just wafting on updrafts. They circled closer and closer -- I couldn't tell if they were ravens (seemed to big) or eagles (seemed too black). The cardinals were furious at them and trying to drive them away. Then the circle of one of 'em took it within easy spotting distance -- what registered as it zoomed by was black, huge, and a red face. I was at the computer when it happened and immediately Googled "turkey vulture" and what appeared seemed to jibe exactly with what I saw.

Not sure of the size, though it, was huge but I wouldn't guess 72-inch wingspan...

As do the swallows return to Capistrano, so too do the buzzards return to Hinkley (OH)

Saw a sow bear this morning with 2 cubs - no yearlings, so this is prolly her first year as a momma.

Didn't see the critter responsible, but got a good smell of skunk yesterday, and I've noticed some porcupine sign - there's so much to look forward to

And with the snow cover pretty much gone, the yard is a mess - bits of sodden paper, dog-chewed bones, sticks, twigs, other debris, and lots and lots of other uhhhhh "dog sign" - not a favorite cleanup chore, but I gotta get at it or there's gonna be plenty of brownspots once the lawn comes in again. Ahhhhh, spring. And shovels. And heavy duty 30 gallon trash bags.

RP just cleared out a buncha stuff from the front lawn. No doggie waste, just a lot of dead grass and the like, and clipped back the ivy that devoured Brighton.

Since we live relatively close to the Susquehanna, we are always treated to stopovers by bald eagles who sometimes nest nearby.
Soz, when you see a big bird flying, you can always tell a vulture by the way its wings make a V shape when seen on end. Hawks and eagles have their wings straight across and their tails much more fanned out.

I understand that the Hinkleyites have an annual "Buzzard day festival", feturing all our favorite road kill recipes.

Thanks so much for the link, timber! I had no idea. It confims my "wowie zowie!" feeling about the whole thing. (The close swooper was probably 15 yards away at his closest, and in bright sun, really a great view.)

Bears, wow!

Thanks for the tip, farmerman.

Soz, turkey vultures really do come across as being huge.

turkey vultures only line of defense is to puke on you. Never try to photo one up close ,if they are surprised and cant fly away (they kind of take off like a C-5A) then theyll run after you and blow this really vile barf in your direction.
We have some friends that have a summer place out in Garrett County Maryland. They get buzzards all over their patio and roof and whenever the people arrive for a stay, they must depuke the patio walls and the roof of the house. They tried everything to keep the buzzards away, nothing worked.

Another good tip! Anything to avoid being barfed on by a turkey vulture. Considering what they ingest, it must be foul. Can't imagine anything more foul than llama barf, though... (when I worked at the zoo there was a certain extremely tetchy llama -- I escaped but many of my co-workers got splattered.)

vulture vomit can be quite toxic. It supposedly has a similar biochemitry as Komodo Dragon Spit. Komodos and vultures can culture clostridium toxins and, according to the US Park Service, dogs that have gotten puked on by vultures have actually died.

Whats fer breakfast? Howbout some chipped beef on toast.

Yeah, Komodos and vultures have a similiar diet, makes sense.

<eeew>

Early sunday morning I saw a fox trot across the highway with a squirrel in its mouth.

One of my neighbors (they have a sloping roof) seems to have a squirrel visitor hanging around one of the eaves. You see a tail or a head peek out on occasion. I'm sure they must be nesting there. No good for my neighbor, but I'm enjoying watching.

And I will be sure to stay away from vulture barf. Oy.

Today was a dual treat here at Timberland; a couple of the puppies made the acquaintence of a skunk this morning, and just a few minutes ago, one of the skunked puppies and 2 of the unaffected engaged in a through-the-fence (thank goodness) confrontation with a porcupine.

The porc escaped irritated but essentially unharmed, lumbering off into the woods with barely a backward glance as the pups maintained an awesome din, and relatively few quills were left in the pups. I think I've found and yanked 'em all, but the wounded bear watching for a while.

As for the scented pair, we have over the years developed an effective if tedious remedy, one not much appreciated by the pups, and which seems, along with the experience of getting skunked in the first place, no deterrent to repetition of the adventure at any opportunity.

I don't know what part of the country you're from, but apparantly in the north. They're so common in Texas that most people but the most sympathetic naturalists ignore them. They're marvelous if you know something about them. Check this out on my other thread:http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23556&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=100 Scroll down.

We had a young sea eagle (I think) sitting in one of our Larry damaged trees on the weekend. White chest, grey wings, orange feet and a black beak - got some good shots of him while he eyed off the fur kids.

The other thing I've noticed post-Larry is fruit bats everywhere and flying around during the day - we've got one living over our mailbox - scare the bejeebus out of me every afternoon when I check the mail..

I'm in Columbus, Ohio, coluber. But pretty recently, before that I was further north (I've lived in WI, IL, and MN). My husband reminded me that we saw them in WI at Devil's Lake, but they're definitely fairly rare around here, at least in the city.

Hey, hh, how's the cleanup going post-Larry?

We also get bats here, I'm not sure what kind. And they sometimes fly into the house, like if you keep the door open in order to get groceries in or garbage out.

I never knew I could scream so loud.

PS Hi soz and coluber. No vultures here that I know of. Hawks, yes, including one was perched on a neighbor's detached garage a coupla years ago, pigeon in talon and everything.

Clean up mostly done in Cairns. Everyone's nature strip has dead grass where the piles of branches andbroken trees were stored waiting for the council guys to bring the front end loader around to collect it.

Minimal damage really, compared to 65 km south....

Today I went to the car dealership for some routine service. It was early in the morning -- about 7:15 AM -- and I had a few minutes to wait for the doors to open.

Well, I noticed that the Service sign was three dimensional, all the letters were individual and stuck out from the wall about, I dunno, maybe 6 inches or so, hard to tell from where I was standing. And, both e's had little twigs and straws in the encircled top part of the e (if there's a technical name for that part of the letter, lay it on me).

I hear cheeping, and noticed the straws in the e on the left were rustling a bit. Then a male sparrow flew over with a small straw in his mouth. More cheeping, but he dropped his treasure. He flew out and soon afterwards, the female (she was kind of dun/grey-colored whereas he was more white with some rust. These were definitely just common sparrows) emerged from the left side of the nest and flew out.

The male returned with more straw and cheeped some more. He looked a little lost -- I get the feeling she was the architect and he was unsure of where to put his straw. He finally just shoved it into the e so that it wouldn't fall on the pavement and flew off. Then she returned, also with straw, and didn't even notice his additions, she just landed and then burrowed back into the e with her straw.

Aw! :-)

We have a giant woodchuck who must live somewhere close by, 'cause we've seen him a LOT lately. He's a big chunky amiable fella, doesn't seem too phased by people, though he's wary.