(editors note: I have no idea how a post about mammals became one about birds. But my mind works like that.)On Tuesday I was making the rounds and saw a lady walking a calf on a leash on the west side of town. She clearly looked like a farmhand -- this wasn't a 4-H pet. That's one of the things that I love about living here in the country.
This morning, I was looking out the back and saw a coyote running on the other side of the river. The kids came in enough time to see it too. In the last flood, I thought I saw one running out of our woods, and down the lane. I'd heard that there were some in the area, but hadn't seen any myself. So there you have it.
Despite my intense bird phobia*, there are some great sights here:
There is a great blue heron that lives in the river.
Once I found a woodcock in our front garden bed. It scared the snot out of me as it tried to fly away, and bounced off the living room window as it took off overhead.
We have three pairs of hawks that are often flying overhead, and once discovered a
kestral that liked to perch in a tree in the backyard.
I love when we look hard enough and are able to spot the woodpeckers that we hear.
Thankfully I have not seen the black bear that occasionally lumbers around the neighborhood, and one day crossed in front of the morning school bus.
* My bird phobia, while not as while documented as my past foot aversion, came to a head when we lived in the other house. For the first year or so that I lived there the attic was poorly sealed, and the old windows were partially blocked by plexiglass. (In the early years Ward's priorities were more along the lines of making the living areas habitable.) But it was a great third floor walk up and gave us about 400 square feet of storage.
One day I went upstairs to get something and this panicked black THING swooped by my head. It was way too big to be a bat...worse, it was a nasty black starling. You have to understand that I am too freaked out by birds to have ever seen the Hitchcock movie. In AP English we had to write our exam essay on a poem called "The Great Scarf of Birds" and that still stays with me when I see a large flock take flight. Anyway, back to the attic. I ran down the stairs, panicked, and slammed the door. I don't remember of Ward was home, or whether it was the next day when he was able to investigate. What I do recall is sitting on our bed with my head in my hands, rocking, and repeating aloud "There's a bird in the house, there's a bird in the house."
Ward was unsuccessful in evacuating the bird, mainly because none of the windows would open. That damn thing got itself stuck between a window and the plexiglass and could only be removed after it had perished. No PETA jokes, please. To this day that is one of the more upsetting experiences in my life.
That was not our only bird situation in that house. One day I was headed to the basement to do some laundry and when I opened the door to the stairs I was assaulted by the smell of decomposition. So I did what any mature adult woman would do. I shut the door (and locked it for good measure) and made Ward deal with it when he came home!
He checked the garage while I sat upstairs, wondering what thing could have gotten in and died and made such a big stink. When he came upstairs I asked "Did you find anything?" He answered affirmatively.
"Squirrel?"
"No."
"Raccoon?"
"No. A bird."
"One of those black ones?!"
"No. A chicken."
"A
CHICKEN???"
Well, the story is that we kept the chest freezer in the garage. In digging for something I sometimes would stack the top layers on the adjacent workbench. Evidently a roasting chicken didn't make it back in the freezer. Ward said it was so puffed up in the plastic that it looked like a balloon, and he was terrified it would burst when he touched it. It did not, and our second bird problem was resolved with a trip to the trashcan.
