Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Parade of animals

These aren't the greatest pictures, but in the last 24 hours I have been visited by three deer, a bear, and some unknown canine or very large feline (lynx or cougar?).

First the deer - seen last evening in the field across the street. Beautiful animals - two does and a stag - they look like they are in great shape and they enjoyed their grazing on the spring foliage for a long, long time. Of course, every time I tried to get close enough for a good picture, they wandered off. Here's the best I could get (get out the magnifying glass - there are two deer in this picture).




Then this afternoon as I took my dogs for their usual pasture run, I discovered a fairly large pile of unknown excrement right smack on top of Martin's pathway bathroom spot (but definately not HIS poop!) - and definitely not my dogs as we had cleaned up the path on our way back from our morning walk. I've noticed strange poops in the pasture the last several days but assumed I must have missed some that my dogs passed - this time I know that was not the case. And it was uncomfortably close to the barn and backyard. There was a fairly wide trail through the grasses (which are now almost shoulder height), leading to the creek and out through the fence. Last year about this time we were visited by lynx and the year before by cougar. Strangely, there was no fur in it, but it was the pale grey of a raw meat and bones eater. (I do hope no one is eating breakfast as they read this blog......Heheheheh!). Clearly, this bears much closer watching.

And speaking of bears, this evening the llamas next door sounded the alarm to say something scary was in the vicinity. They don't consider coyotes and dogs scary, or even deer, so I headed out to see what had them upset. And there, right across the road, was a young black bear. It was quite small - probably either a fall-birthed female or an early spring-birthed male. Needless to say, I didn't try to get too close, especially since mom was no doubt close by (young bears stay with their moms for two years). This is the best I could do for a picture - look hard at the black dot in the centre - that's Teddy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe we could have a close-up of the scat for identification!!

Bev

Jean said...

Hahaha - well, I tossed it already. But I did research it on the net, and found this great site that helps identify scat: http://www.bear-tracker.com/animalscat.html
And I am almost certain it was cougar scat - now that's scary, especially so close to the piggies!

Karen said...

A cougar could be worrisome, but isn't it great having the wildlife close by? I visited clients the other day who had three deer grazing outside their back door.

I'd love to see the baby donkey at your neighbour's. They are so sweet.