What wildlife do you see on your rides?

[Pax]

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.

[Quillfred]

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.

When do you get to start the diving gig (speaking of animals)?

[Pax]

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.

When do you get to start the diving gig (speaking of animals)?

Hiya Quill!

Seen a bunch of roadrunners, our house backs up on to a wash that is some sort of critter highway.

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.

[Duck on Wheels]

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!

[crazycanuck]

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... 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

[Quillfred]

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... ian's never told me about these... I vas foooolleeeedd...ARGHT
c

Of course there are Drop Bears. Cousin to our local Sasquatch...

http://www.bigfootinfo.org/

Being the youngest to two brothers, I've fallen prey to every trick in the book.

Queen, it is great to know that Roadrunners are alive and well!

[light_sabe_r]

Yesturday morning my B/F and I rode past an enormous colony of Flying foxes. They really do STINK!

[Tuckervill]

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

[Saxa82]

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?

[crazycanuck]

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!!!

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...

c

[Brandy]

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. So cute though!

[Evie]

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?

[bcipam]

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

[Evie]

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:



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.

[bcipam]

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!!!