Lions, tigers, and bears–OH MY!!!
Posted on January 13, 2007 - Filed Under Uncategorized
My dad asked me the other day whether we have seen any wildlife out here. Well, we certainly haven’t seen nearly as much as I would like. When we first moved into our house, I happened to be standing inside with a view out the front window and saw something flash by on the street outside. All I saw was literally a blur, so I rushed out the front door; I had no idea what it might have been. When I got outside, I scanned the ground in the direction the thing had run. About 100 yards or so away, I saw the thing moving very fast through some grass. And, lo and behold, I caught sight of another. Now, it took me a minute to reason through what this might have been. It (they) moved too fast to be a dog, cat, or coyote (I’ll get to those in a minute) and then it occurred to me that jackrabbits are native to this area. I think once the first one moved into the grass, it attracted the attention of the second, which proceeded to chase the first into some higher grass.
Then, some nights later, we heard this awful howling noise coming from outside. It was high pitched, too high to possibly be dogs. And it came in the form of a chorus. Obviously, these voices belonged to the very native coyotes. We got some information when we initially took possession of the house that they’re big around here. Apparently, they will come and get your small pet and eat it. I asked some of my students about it one day and they did in fact confirm that coyotes have been known to roam around the housing areas, looking for food I guess.
Finally, last night when I was outside cleaning up dog poop, I heard an owl. I looked up and there it was–perched on top of the house next to ours. Because of the distance and the shape of it’s body, if I hadn’t heard it’s hoots, I would have thought it was a cat. I called Erin outside (which Maggie thoroughly enjoyed…it was cold and she actually seems to not mind being cold) and we both got the biggest kick out of our chance to witness something neither of us ever had. We tried to get a picture but the bird flew away. It is not surprising at all we were able to see the owl; we literally live just down the road from the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. This area is host to the world’s largest concentration of wild raptor birds, i.e. eagles, falcons, and other predatory species.
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3 Responses to “Lions, tigers, and bears–OH MY!!!”
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we tend to see those here as well… gotta love it
we had coyotes in our retention basin in ohio, use to hear the ducks sreeching as the coyotes were attacking. yuck! I love to hear the owls use to see them in Ohio and down here. We have agator across the street, his name Albert. I forgot to show him to you when you were here. You still need to see a side winder they must be around where you are. Hopefully an elk will wander into your area. If it does let us know.
HELLO!!!!
Just want to say hi and let you know I recently ate 2 dozen cookies pretty much all by myself. The whole grain cookies were fabulous and I did all I could to keep them out of Jerry’s site so I could feast on them…I have got to get more of those. Is there a website?
On another note-Maggie has 7 teeth? Jaiden is only a month behind her and still has just has just the bottom two although I think she will wake up one morning with a mouth full given the number of times we explain any ill mood she has on “teething”. She pretty much has two extreme moods. Very very happy which we are lucky is about 90% of the time or grumpy and teething.
Hope all is well and I look forward to talking with you soon. I think of you all often and feel very connected knowing we are experiening much of the same when it comes to lifestyle and baby moments.
I am so glad you two are reclaiming your bed. I have only brought Jaiden to bed with us a few times and between her and Rusty, it makes for a terrible nights sleep and I wake up with an aching back and oh so tired.
Take care and give Maggie a kiss for me..