WILD Thangs!

[mogal]

Missouri is going to have a limited black bear season this fall.  In the last couple of weeks, one was sighted in the south part of our county and another in the south part of the county to the west.  Local news then carried another story showing bears being caught on security cameras in the St. Louis suburbs!  

Last weekend, we put up hay and DH saw a bobcat on the edge of our front field as he was bringing in bales with the tractor.  I talked to a neighbor yesterday who farms a lot of ground around us.  Yes, he's been seeing more bobcats lately.  He's also been seeing armadillos and we've had 2 in our yard since last fall.  What they can do to a garden is heartbreaking and only in one night.  They hunt worms, grubs, etc., in the soft soil.  

Yesterday I went down to an online auction preview through an area where there is little human occupation due to its being bounded by 2 low water crossings.  As I came up the hill from the first one, there was a doe and very small, still spotted fawn in the middle of the road.  So pretty.  It's not uncommon for us to have deer crossing the front field just across the fence from the yard.  One night a doe decided she'd help herself to some peaches from our tree  IN the yard.  I opened the door quickly and yelled at her.  Hope she doesn't come back.  

[Woodpecker]

Gee, what is going on in our world of today??? I wonder how and why the bears are able and want or need to go in areas where they’re usually not? I sure want you to be super careful now with bob cats there too!

People aren’t themselves these days and now the animals are trying to change their habitat… craziness surrounds us.

[mogal]

Back in the late 50's, early 60's, Arkansas reintroduced black bears to the northwest part of the state. They procreated and have spread out, seeking new territory to live. They are attracted to urban areas or any other place that offers easy food sources--garbage, pet food left out overnight or even sunflower seed or nectar feeders for the birds. The worst part is that any bear that loses its fear of humans might very well lose its life when it won't go back to the wild.

I can't address the bobcats as they have probably been here all along anywhere there is adequate habitat/food sources like around us. I've read that armadillos have come north in culverts/pipe from the oil fields in the south but I have no idea if it's true or not. Supposedly they don't hibernate, don't tolerate long periods of serious cold and aren't adapted to find food in frozen areas. You can't drive 30 miles on the interstate without seeing a couple dead on the side of the road.

[susannah]

We've been seeing a lot more of certain types of animals this year. Foxes are very, very frequent (instead of occasionally as it was in prior years). Lots of porcupines - after seeing a live porcupine only once in the 10 years we've been here, this year we have them crossing our yard a lot more frequently. Sometimes one, sometimes two - they move so slow it's easy to see them. I wanted to get a picture of one for the grandkids a month or so back. Got the camera and went out on the deck. Took the first picture - action shot; showed the porcupine mid-stride. Well, porky apparently heard the shutter click on my camera, because it froze, then kind of arched up. So of course I got a picture of that as well. That picture, well, it kind of freaked out my grandson. Bobcats, we've seen a couple of times but not commonly. Dh thinks he saw a lynx, which would be unusual - I'm thinking it was more likely a bobcat. We saw a wolf three times so far this year - that's really uncommon, because we've gone years without seeing one.

The opposite is true for bears - they're not hanging around much this year. Black bears are abundant in this part of the state, but we haven't seen a single one - or evidence of a single one - this summer. I mean, our yard is almost constantly "land mined" by bears - or rather, it WAS in the past. The neighbors' feeder poles got twisted into pretzels in prior years. This year, I have yet to see one pile of bear scat when I'm cutting the lawn. I mentioned it to dh, who said he hasn't seen any scat this year either. Then he came up with a possible reason: one of the neighbors down the road isn't in good health, and his son moved in with him. His son has a bunch of dogs that he uses bear hunting, and he brought his dogs with him. Dh is wondering if the constant howling of the dogs is keeping the bears away. Could be. Meanwhile, there have been reports of bears strolling down the street in the downtown of a nearby city. And of bears chasing dogs and even threatening a person. That's where it gets bad. As mogal said, it's very bad when bears lose their fear of humans. "A fed bear is a dead bear" isn't just a saying or rhyme, it's the sad truth.

mogal , I did not know you had armadillos in your area. I guess I just assumed they were further south - Texas, Louisiana. Such strange, almost prehistoric looking critters. I think it's safe to say we do not have those in northern Wisconsin!

[mogal]

Susannah, since the armadillos don't really fear humans and move slowly, we had the opportunity to see it literally up close and personal. While they aren't in the cute/cuddly category, they are definitely beautiful with their armor plates and little tufts of hair in regular patterns on their bodies. Their ears look like folded ovals of leather but the really impressive thing about them is their feet and claws, made for digging and burrowing as they look for food.

I doubt too many survive our harsher winters when we have snow and subfreezing temperatures for weeks at a time. Some winters we have little cold but I'd bet it would still be "slim pickin's" for an armadillo.

Their primary defense mechanism is to jump straight up when threatened. On a busy road, that puts the critter right at the height of a car bumper. The joke is that an armadillo's natural posture is lying on its back with all four feet straight up in the air.

[susannah]

Jun 20, 2021 16:22:20 GMT mogal said:

One night a doe decided she'd help herself to some peaches from our tree  IN the yard.  I opened the door quickly and yelled at her.  Hope she doesn't come back.  

The deer are so good at raiding fruit trees! The first year we owned this house, we still lived in southern Wisconsin because we hadn't retired yet. So we weren't up here all the time. The apple tree was loaded with apples on one visit, but the next time we came up there were very few apples. Dh wondered if maybe the neighbors had an agreement with the prior owner that they could share the apples. I thought that was pretty unlikely. We already were friends with the neighbors - the amazing neighbors I've mentioned several times in my posts - and if they wanted the apples, they would have asked. Well, not too long after that, we saw several deer gathered under the apple tree. The largest one got up on its hind legs, grabbed a branch in its mouth, shook it - and it rained apples. Which its deer friends immediately began feasting on. Mystery solved. 

Later, I was telling our neighbors about it, and one of them commented "I think we just solved another mystery. We get blossoms on our plum trees every year, we get small fruit - but never get a chance to pick the ripe plums, because the next time we come up they're all gone." Yep, most likely the work of the fruit loving deer.