My brain definitely agrees. Now if I can only train my skin to react the same way! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lise
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My brain definitely agrees. Now if I can only train my skin to react the same way! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lise
A bit slow on the uptake.. but yeah, Crazycanuck - have seen the pelicans - though I tend to be looking at the ground in a paranoid state lately!
Did see a duck on a post today - I couldn't see any water nearby - and it was still there an hour later when I returned.
best wildlife spotting has to be the pod of 5 or so dolphins under the Narrows bridge (for those of you who know Perth) about 20-25km up river. Definite wildlife highlight!
Oh, man, SK, I was EATING!Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
(there's an adventure story for you. How did Lise end up in the hospital? It's a biking related injury. She was eating pasta and choked while laughing at a post from SK on the TE board.)
.............................
Do you think if we write his name in asterisks enough times, **** Cheney will disappear?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lise
Beautiful!!!
Let's send **** Cheney a Crap you Hands Elmo!! He can use it for quail (Quayle?) hunting target practice....
Edit: Amazing how it ***'s out "****" but not "Crap". Conspiracy? Liberal media??
Yes. Clearly.Quote:
Originally Posted by maillotpois
I am now resisting the adolescent urge to write a bunch of words and see which ones get the star treatment. Resist! :rolleyes:
On Sunday I saw a mother deer and two fawns. The mother and one fawn made it across the bike trail but the other fawn saw me and ran back. I waited a bit to see if it would cross but the path was really busy and it was sort of stuck. I hope it made it.
Okay... most of the wildlife I saw yesturday during the overcast morning.... Galahs, Magpies (Very aggressive little buggas), Noisy miners and Rainbow Lorikeets. Funny to see the lorikeets drunk on nectar. ^_^
Are we only counting alive and breathing wildlife? Something about this time of year........... I see SO many roadkill racoons and snakes! Like the overflow that survived the relatively mild winter is now out there for the cars to destroy...... ick! I DO see some gorgeous blue herons, tho', when crossing the Mississippi (via bridge!) And in surrounding bodies of water. When they take off for flight - it can take your breath away!
annie
I love descriptions of birds - even if you spell mynah "creatively"Quote:
Originally Posted by light_sabe_r
Keep riding, keep posting
On rides around the neighborhood, we usually see magpies, squirrels, horses, cows, miniature horses and cows too! Canada Geese and Mallards, Snakes now and again, and yesterday a hawk -- being pestered by a pair of crows! One day recently, we found a badger -- poking his head out of a hole in the road, and another meandering down the street a few miles later. Also Rock Chuck, LOTS of Rock Chucks!
Karen in Boise
On Saturday, my huband called me from a motorcycle ride he was on. (I was on a bicycle ride in a different mountain range.) He and some friends had stopped at an abandoned missle site on the top of a mountain.
He asked me if he was looking at a condor - it was black with a red head and a ten foot wingspan, and it was flying within a few feet of them. I said it had to be, turkey vultures are a lot smaller. He was just in awe of it's size and how close it was. Unfortunately, he didn't have a camera with him.
After he hung up with me, two other condors came and were flying around them. A Fish and Wildlife guy who was tracking them showed up and told my husband and his friends that they were all zoo born and released into the wild as part of the recovery program. He said that it's best to try to scare them away from people, and asked them to leave, and rev their engines loud when they did, then he started banging on a metal tower.
I wish I had been there, I always miss the interesting animal sightings, like the time he saw the quail family, though I'm glad I missed his bear encounter.
There was a joke when I lived in Minnesota:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the raccoon it _could_ be done!
Nanci
That would be so amazing to see condors- one of the animals I've waited my whole life to see like the coral snake (seen), Gila Monster (not- but seen by Running Mommy!), armadillo (seen lots!!!).
Nanci
Last Sunday my friend and I were riding down a local boulevard, close to the green belt . We were half a field away when a wolf came tearing across the rode and ran into the field. He was a big fella--if indeed it was a he........I haven't seen a wolf around here in over ten years!
In the Seattle area we see bald eagles, hawks, great blue herons (HUGE) ospreys and lots of smaller birds.
We also see deer (on saturday I saw twin foals too )
We also have lots of road kill, husband ran over 4 slugs on saturday!
Yeoww... was it as "wild" and "free" as one imagines? (you know archetypes and all that?)Quote:
Originally Posted by JLD
http://tinyurl.com/pbanc
I've been thinking about condors all day. Here is the story of the final days before they were all taken into captivity, and what became of them...
As I was riding today I was treated to a wonderful show, a doe and her fawn in the meadow. The fawn was staying very close to mom but they both seemed relaxed and a bit confused by me and the bike. They were beautiful!
Still on a high from my June 23 ride so I will write about it here too...
I went out to the border where the two rivers meet to see my lovely bee-eater colony. There are even more of them now and their trilling I could hear from quite far away.
It was early in the morning before the First Patrol and so the tracks of the night's visitors were really clear on the sand-strip next to the Border Fence
Suddenly it caught my eye and I braked immediately...a snake track. Perfectly long and wiggly and wavy amongst all the pig prints, jackal prints and lots and lots of different tiny birdy-feet with their associated beak-poke-holes.
I just stared and stared.(There are no snakes in New Zealand so I am impressed by them because we have heard about them in foreign literature and seen them on tv)
Oh I just felt like A Wild Cave Woman or something...an amazing few moments
Do you-all know what I mean?
Margo49, I was pretty taken by your description of what you saw by the Border Fence---one of those profound connections with elemental nature. I had an experience like that climbing Mt. Fuji years ago---when you realize just how powerful nature, animals, the earth, and your part of that are. (bad grammar, but you know what I mean).
No snakes at all in NZ?
I appreciate the strong draw of nature as well. That is why I lived on Vashon Island for ten years and spent a 3 hr/day commute to work.
I would hear owls almost daily about 4 am. Got to see a Great Horned and a Barred (almost thought I had the elusive Spotted).Different hawks and eagles, sparrows building nests, hummingbirds (they would sometimes "dance" in the spray when I watered), Pileated Woodpeckers and other species. The Tree Frogs would sing after a rain. The deer would eat in my drainfield and would "mow" my strawberries and raspberries.
Margo, I looked up Bee Eaters as I am not familiar with them. What a beautiful bird! It must be quite a treat to see them. Snakes usually like it warmer than Western Washington, but I used to see some shy Garter Snakes.
As far as i'm aware there are no snakes in nz.....! Hoop snakes for the tourists though..tee hee...
It's a good thing it's winter here in Western Australia..I think most snakes are in hiding..Although they're out there, i still look around me before i water the bushes on my mtn bike rides...
I'd love to see just one live snake but know it would be one of the lethal ones so i'm cautious on that wish...No desire to have a run in with a dugite or a tiger snake thanks....
No creatures on our ride today-too early for the live roos...I only saw a VERY large dead kangaroo on the side of the road
c
Nope, no snakes in NZ :D
Crazycanuck - what's a hoop snake?
I'll never tell. Ever heard of drop bears? Same thing...
c
I'll tell you over coffee one day.
Awwww come on, tell me/us. The kiwis in my house are confused.
Funny thing going from IL to AZ, I used to see squirrels an robins and smashed skunks...now I see gamble quail (cutest babies EVER!), small fuzzy ground squirrel-looking things, coyotes, javalina, lizards, snakes, and lots of hawks. I'm gonna wreck because I'm paying so much attention to the flora and fauna rather than the road. :p
Queen have you seen any Roadrunners yet? I saw one many years ago during a sweep of the Southwest. I just did a search and it stated they can go 17 miles per hour on foot, er I mean claw. They can catch Rattlesnakes as well. :eek:
When do you get to start the diving gig (speaking of animals)?
Hiya Quill!Quote:
Originally Posted by Quillfred
Seen a bunch of roadrunners, our house backs up on to a wash that is some sort of critter highway. :p
Start the dive shop gig tomorrow morning, it feels so good to be going back to work! As much as we all dream of just hanging around the house, trust me, it's boring as hell after a short while.
Are those anything like jackalopes? Mythical beasts for impressing tourists? I vaguely recall something about snakes that would bite their own tails to form a circle the size of a bicycle wheel and then roll very fast over long distances. Nonsense, I presume. And drop bears, would that be bears that jump on you out of trees? There _are_ big cats that do that (mountain lions leeping onto deer?), but bears? Næh!
ONe day whilst mtn biking in auckland(after 4yrs i might add) our biking partner Ian (got quite confusing)said watch out for the drop bears...I sat & thought...:confused: ian's never told me about these... I vas foooolleeeedd...ARGHT
The other ian told me it was something they told american tourists about when the met them either in NZ or on thier OE in Canada...
Hoop snakes-an ozzie friend here told me about them...Í knew she was having me on...She too told American tourists about these & they believed her....
c
Of course there are Drop Bears. Cousin to our local Sasquatch...;)Quote:
Originally Posted by crazycanuck
http://www.bigfootinfo.org/
Being the youngest to two brothers, I've fallen prey to every trick in the book. :confused:
Queen, it is great to know that Roadrunners are alive and well!
Yesturday morning my B/F and I rode past an enormous colony of Flying foxes. :p They really do STINK!
Today I rode a new route around a lake. (took the uphill way instead of the downhill way. doh!) Nearing a clump of bushes on my right, a starling flew out of it and across the road about 15 feet head of me. It was chirping and dipping down to the road over and over again.
I was just paying attention to the bird and the road, but when I got up to it I saw that it was screaming and dipping at a GINORMOUS king snake, whose tail I almost ran over!
EEK! I watched the snake go straight across the road into the ditch on the other side, with the bird chasing him the whole way. Then I had a weird sensation that, like deer, there would be a herd of snakes following him, and I started mashing hard! lol. About 20 yards down the road I got he heebie-jeebies and had to stop.
:::shiver:::
Karen
Last year I wrote a poem about the wildlife I've seen on rides. Every so once in a while, I add something new to the poem, so it really is a work in progress.
Saxa82
The Flora and the Fauna
On my many rides I see
the flora and the fauna all around.
The coyote crosses my path,
I startle the bear in his wood,
I eat the gnats.
Orioles and scarlet tanagers flash
their brilliance, goldfinches flit about.
Caterpillars dot the road,
in a month, I blink away
the moths they’ve become.
Above, there’s a hawk screaming
its authority, snake in its talons.
A fox flies by, golden glimmer of a tail.
A mink slinks across the road,
I spy a heron silently fishing.
The garter snake winds its way
across the road, nearly flattened by my wheel.
A blizzard of mountain laurel blinds me.
Soon, their petals will look like
old tissue paper, tea brown and wrinkled.
Native rhododendron unfurl their flags
just in time for the Fourth of July.
What am I in this landscape
but a smudge against a blue background?
Back when Ian & I first purchased our bikes we rode (the kiwi girls will understand the area) from Ohiwa Harbour to Whakatane the long way round.
We were just outside of Ohope when Ian saw a dead possum (a good possum is a dead one i say) on the road-intact...He stopped to look at it & as i wandered towards him....what does Ian do..He hurls it towards me!!!:eek:
I could have killed him...
Exact conversation whilst trying to calm oneself from laughing:
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to throw dead things" ....
"nope"
"oh ok then, the next time i see something dead i'm throwing it at you...dork!"
I love the man...:D :)
c
Holy bunnies batman! Hundreds of them on the San Diego Creek Trail this morning, just before and after dawn. They were so cute. Kind of sketchy riding with them because they do the...FREEZE. I'M GOING THIS WAY. NO. I'M GOING THAT WAY...dance in front of your wheel. :eek: So cute though!
I saw something this morning, and I have no idea what it was!
All I saw was its silhouette, because it ran across the road in front of a car.
It was about the length of my wrist to my elbow, and about the height of my hand (wrist to fingertips). It carried its head very low, and it just sort of tapered off, so there was no distinct neck. It moved pretty fast, and its legs moved independently--no bounding the way a rat does in when it's in a hurry, and no rocking like most things do when they run. The legs were kind of stubby, and it carried itself up off of them. They were also pretty uniform; its back legs looked more like its front legs, and they weren't shaped like a rabbit's or possum's. It had no tail that I could see.
Any ideas?
Take it it was a mammal of some sort? Do you have polecats, weasels, strouts, pine martens, minks or ferrets in your area? Or something like a ringtail cat?
check out this website:
http://freespace.virgin.net/peter.wilde3/mustelids.html
It was definitely a mammal, but it wasn't shaped like any of the weasels on that website. Its body wasn't as long or as arched. It was more dome-shaped than anything, looking at it from the side.
Here's what it more or less looked like:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...eirdthings.jpg
At first I thought it might be a mole, but it carried itself too high, it didn't have the crazy nose, its feet were too small, and I've never heard of a mole sprinting in front of a car.
I was out before five this morning, so I'm assuming it was nocturnal.
And it most likely wasn't that color. :D
Moles are very small, would fit in your palm. you said this animal was about 8 - 10 inches long? Could it be a marmot? Not certain if they are in PA but marmots are like big furry squirrels (think squirrels on steroids).
Or how about a muskrat?
Actually this is kind of fun - let's guess the weird mammal!!!