Friday Five: The Wild Animal Edition....

About a month ago my husband and I discovered a family of bobcats living on the roof of the house across the street.



video taken by mr. mompriest...(notice the stare momma gives...)

Let me explain.

We live on the foothills of a mountain range, in the desert southwest USA. It is not uncommon to see bobcats, coyotes, even mountain lion. Usually, though all we see are spiders, scorpions, lizards, and birds. Lots of birds.

That is until this bobcat family took to roosting on the roof of the empty house across the street. There is a family of three babies (kits?) and the momma. The papa cat, while around for awhile, seems to have moved on. We see them on the roof in the early morning and early evening hours. We see one parent walking along the side of our house, bringing lunch back to the family... They play, and roam around with ease. The biggest problem for us, with 100+ temperatures is trying to figure out a safe time to walk our dogs....

For this Friday Five, share with us a wild animal story from your life. Or if you've never had such an encounter share with us your five favorite animals, and why. Bonus for videos and photos!




Ok. I have a number I could share:

The story about the woodchuck that lived under the deck of our former house. How my dogs would stand at the sliding glass door barking for all they were worth, and the woodchuck would stand at the far end of the deck, on it's hind legs, baring its teeth. Of course the woodchuck is vegetarian, and loved the apples, pears, and plums that fell in the yard. My dogs, not so much love there. Woodchuck moved on to better digs.

A few years later a family of red fox moved into the abandoned woodchuck den under the deck. We had a delightful spring watching the parents and the 8 baby fox playing...until the coyotes came - the next day the fox were gone. Moved onto to safer digs.

This year, in addition to the bobcat family we had a family of coyotes in the arroyo behind my house. (Think small canyon where mountain water flows after a heavy rain). Anyway, the family of coyote would wake up every afternoon about 5:30, when the evening train rolled through and blew its whistle. Trains and coyotes howling. Same thing happened every morning at 5:30am....

I could tell the story about the day my cat trapped a bark scorpion in the room where I was lying on the floor exercising, the scorpion only a few inches from my head. No one was hurt, except the scorpion...

I could go on....but perhaps another day...

Comments

I'll have to watch this when I get home.
Rev Kim said…
Wow, that's great! Yeah, momma is definitely giving him the stink eye, isn't she? The babies are soo cute - hard to believe they will grow up to be fierce!
Kimberly said…
Funny things, those woodchucks! I remember live-trapping the one beneath our deck when I was in high school--watermelon caught him--and bicycling him to wildlife rescue!
ta-da! you did it! you really did it! yahoo!!! looks fab dahling... just fab!
You truly live "Where the Wild Things Are/"

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