Probably a good practice.

from GeorgiaWildlife

We've had a young raccoon hang around the backyard for 18 months now. Last year he/she sat on our back deck in the sunshine, leaning back against the full-glass door into the dinette and scratching his (I'm going to use the male pronoun here) belly, oblivious to six cats who were climbing on top of each other on the inside of the dinette door, goggling and hardly able to contain themselves.
The young'un came back and did the same thing repeatedly in the afternoon sunshine.

This year, he's back and trying to reach the birdfeeder in the cherry tree outside the dinette. He reaches, stretches, doesn't quite make it, and finally gives up. He seems quite comfortable in our backyard in full daylight, and after all this time he can't have rabies ... but we just watch and enjoy ... and are happy that he scampers back into the woods, and not onto our roof!

The reason they're primarily nocturnal is the danger to them from all their daytime predators. They'll come around during the day if they don't feel threatened.

This morning it was a flicker breakfasting on some ants in approximately the same spot where the racoons had their discussion in the middle of the street.

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Surprise!

Galveston shark bite.

From what I can see, he had good taste...I don't know about her.

This is a surprise to me, didn't know Wolves and Ravens got along. I think that's very rare in nature for species to share a carcass willingly, maybe the Wolves learned they were wasting their time/energy trying to chase the Ravens off?
Link via

He thought it was a possum.
When will they learn... touching any wild critter with your bare hand is asking for trouble. You may get away with it a few times, but it'll get you in the end.

OWWWWWWWWWW!
Don't slap nature, it's designed to slap back.

There's a den of fox kits under a rock behind my house. No success getting a pic yet... amazingly cute sneaky little chicken stealing bastages.

Griff, my buddy spends 5 days a week down in DE and 2 days up here. A fox has taken advantage of his absence and moved in up here. It leaves nasty poops that look and smell like Canadian geese. Very nasty to step in. Have you seen this?

New squirrel in mah 'hood. You make kissy sounds at this squirrel, he don't look at ya wonderin' "Whirr mah cookeh?", he goes straight for the tiptop of the tree. No passing go, no $200 or nuttin'. ZOOM!!! To the top!

He does come down for the cookie later, if he sees you toss it, so, maybe we can still win him over. We now have two different squirrels at The Shack that will take the cookie from your hand, and a few that really want to take it from you, but, they just can't get past those last couple hops.

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He's a juvie.

No but I was keeping my distance. I'll let you know if it starts getting nasty up there.

Gorgeous photos.
Moar plz.

I make kissy sounds at every squirrel I come across, even though none of them here seem to understand.

I have Squirrel Mix* in my bag for when I walk through the churchyard.
Even if I scatter it and sit and wait for half an hour they still don't show. They are there, I've seen them and I hear them when I am sitting and reading.

But I think the birds mob the place when I leave and laugh behind my back.
It's hard to get squirrels used to being fed in a public place when you have to work and are the only one doing it. The ones in Greenwich and Valentines Park had generations of it to draw on.

Maybe I should make it a community project.
Except some silly person would let their toddler try to pet one and end up in A&E...

* no, really.
Nuts, seeds and dried fruit. RSPCA approved.
If I'm going to have to scatter it, it may as well be the right stuff.

Yet you'll give bread to the birds ! :p

No! Funny you should say that.
I bought duck food after reading how well-meaning people like me feed bread that fills their bellies with empty calories and can lead to vitamin deficiency.

And unlike the warped ducks in Valentines Park (Ilford) who didn't know what was good for them, Otley ducks, swans, pigeons and seagulls fight for the pellets the same way they do for the unhealthy bread. As long as it's thrown in a nice high arc so they can see it, and lands with a splash in the water, they will come...

I got the two types of food on a deal from the local petshop (because I bought them together)

Less bread for me these days, and no bread for birdies.
Expect bakers to go bankrupt.

Everywhere.

Slowed motion of a Hummingbird Moth

Brown Bear.

I like the yawn, and the slow deliberation before deciding to collapse into a sit.

Yeah, because he can do any damn thing he wants. :haha:
He's faced huge bears, wolves, and tap-dancing Moose in the wild, those puny humans are no threat.

I shot the latest intruder, Monax marmota, the other day. Brazen bastard made a nest/hole right in the middle of my garden. I was too lazy/depressed to deal with it right away, certainly didn't bother skinning it. A couple of days of resting in the sun and heat and it was time to stuff it back into its hole. Pretty stinky. I dragooned the kids to help fill it in since I am off shovel duty for a few more months while my shoulder recuperates. Even shooting with the rifle on a rest was a bit much. Anyway, after a bit of inspired whining and claims of enslavement and imminent death by heat stroke they got the hole filled in and raked. I collapsed as much as I could with my feeeeeeeeeeet and then I wondered if maybe I could collapse the entire gallery...


Suppose I was to snake a hose into the tunnel and then filled the tunnel with a lot of propane and maybe a bit of O2 as well, and then detonated it from a presumably safe location (HA woodchuck roulette!) by means of a wire fed into the hloe along with the hose. Maybe that would make enough of a bang to collapse the whole gallery. Proapne is lighter than air and thus sinks.

Is this maybe the most brilliant idea you've heard from me? Maybe I can time it with the 4th of July festivities.

Could I make a convincing case for "I had no idea that would happen." if things go south?

Depends on if they search your internet history. It would make a good story though.

:eyebrow:

As long as the gallery doesn't extend under your house :eek:

We had a chicken massacre here in which we lost all layers to the foxes. Benny was doing his best when out and about but when he's inside he can't enforce the rule of law. The plan was to lock up the chickens as soon as we saw predation but teh fox was too efficient. I made a long covered run for the turkeys because I know they're dumb but the chickens lack of wit around predators surprised me.

Chlorine. Sinks because it's heavier than air.

www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/chlorine/basics/facts.asp

The other lighter than air. I meant that other thing than air.

No recipe for how much turpentine to add to make it explosive. I suppose I'll have to do the stoichiometry myself, then?

Chickens have been resting on their wit laurels since the days of vaudeville. We haven't heard anything funny from them since the crossing the road joke. Not that that excuses the fox's behavior.

If you insist on going BOOM, stick with the propane, *something* will eventually work. But the chlorine does have the advantage of NOT blowing up your house, and working continuously down, down, downward. You can get an almighty-motherfuckload of chlorine fumes from a tablet of chlorine used to disinfect swimming pools. I nearly killed myself fucking around with that shit. I was intent on bleaching a colored shirt to whiteness. I broke up a good chunk of one of those hockey-puck-sized tablets in the bathtub with water, knocking it around and briskly rubbing the shirt in the little bit of water. And then, all of a sudden like, I couldn't breathe. I mean, maybe the muscles were working, but just pumping the poison around with vigor proportional to my rapidly escalating panic. I staggered outside and lay in the junipers, gasping. It took a few hyperventilated trips back into the house to open ALL windows and doors and turn on every fan I own. It seemed like a very long time before the air was breathable again, much longer than it took to just drain the tub.

There's no doubt that such an event in the burrow would render it unlivable, driving them out to be shot if they didn't die underground.

Um. What the hell are you talking about? Do the stoichiometry by all means, but do please give us the detailed equations ... or, hell, just blow stuff up. If you want anything of value left afterward, consult a female. We'll do the calcs for you. ;)

Sarge ... no, please withdraw this video. This is a snuff film of a blue canary, and why you posted it is beyond me. Please take it down.
Yes, anhydrous ammonia will kill us - humans, animals, all of us.

You have control of this video and I don't ... just asking you to consider the consequences to others and not post it in this way.

you are correct. I am rather macabre due to some events. As many have guessed I can have an extremely dark side. I apologize and thank you

I dunno, I distinctly heard an old hen start with, "So a horse walks into..." I figure the fox was within her rights.

V, the chlorine, even better when mixed with ammonia!, is fine and dandy but the guy is dead already. I want to collapse the gallery so it is uninhabitable. More of a pipe dream really since a major part of the gallery is under my shed and my and my contiguous neighbor's lawns and gardens. The last infestation was a few years ago and my neighbor at the time gassed them in their dens. I think the corpses kept the galleries vacant for a few years. Anyway, shooting them is all good fun and practice for the Woodchuck Zombie Apocalypse.

Ortho, thanks for the offer to help with my quackulations. :D

If you want anything at all left (and I ain't talking about blowing shit up), leave the calculating females out of it entirely.

How far down in there could you stuff a spewing can (or 5) of Great Stuff Insulating Foam Sealant?

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Any time; I'm a fan of quackulating.

Unrelated to blowing stuff up, our barn swallow brood has fledged, leaving a gawdawful mess right in front of our front door (the nest was directly OVER the front door). Never mind. They've been perching on the porch chairs, preening, doing little practice flight circles and swoops and coming back ... this morning none of them were in the nest. Unsurprising, since there are 5 and they were sitting on top of each other before. This afternoon they were all swooping around the front area catching bugs, babies as big as the parents, one huge gorgeous roundabout of swallows (cynics, cue Circle of Life here).

AND ... a hen turkey brought her brood of 12 chicks into our backyard today to hunt bugs and grubs. Too much cuteness. Then the big-ass groundhog that naps under our deck ran out and sat right in the middle of them, taunting us. Next time, groundhog!

Twelve?!

I saw an old hen with nine poults once. I was stunned. As was everyone (turkey hunters, mostly) I told about it.

You rarely see more than a half-dozen in these parts.

Must not be many predators around there.

I believe they have a different sub-species that far north. Like most of the squirrels being black (can I say that or is it racist?)

Ortho - Are there any neurotoxins you could slip 3F to take care of his ground hogs? I was talking to some guys on the internet from Yemen or something and they were more than willing to mail some bio toxins.

The solution is obvious.

Pee down the hole. Regularly.

I have a friend who tried that and pooping down the hole. It just pisses them off and makes them vengeful.

Mothballs? Lots of them?

Yes, but how do you get their tiny legs apart?

Hah! My brain. It is teh awesome. Sometimes.

On the thinnest of hunches, I went Googling for a product I thought up. And, lo, and, behold, there it was plain as the mole on yer nose on my face.

Dearest Foot, I present to you, Critter Ridder from Havahart:

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Also comes in a spray. From here (or pretty much anywhere else, really)

If it comes in a spray, you might consider loosening your grip.

That took just a second...:lol2:

...well, longer than a second...

Hornets...

As a person who is interested in interesting stuff, that was pretty damn cool.

As a person who is allergic to bee stings, and such, fuck that shit, which way to the diesel fuel?

I take issue with White Faced Hornets not being aggressive, though. I had some work me over as a youth, take my wallet, and leave me for dead. It couldn't have been my fault, I was a lovely lad. My eyes were swollen shut for two days so I couldn't pick them out of a lineup.

Who told you White Faced Hornets weren't aggressive? They're the worst of the lot. You can't trust a' one of 'em.

When I posted I thought that statement was at the beginning of the video, but it was really at the youtube page... My bad.

Grr. Something chewed through the spout of my plastic gasoline can that I've stored under the deck for the past 15 years. So I bought a fancy new one that met current regs and was pretty expensive. That just got chewed on too, as well as the gas tank on the lawn mower. I think it's the chipmunk that lives in the nearby hole. This is war. Pics won't be following, out of respect for the sensibilities of animal lovers here. Hatching a plan now. Trip to the hardware store planned for later in the day. (They seemed indifferent to the poison pellets I dropped down their holes.)

Very interesting insight into the nest.
Although one of the most interesting things for me was hearing someone give the word "nest" more than one syllable :p:

If you want a gas can, buy it on eBay and get the old style that doesn't meet current regs. Get one with the nipple on the other side from the spout.

The new ones absolutely suck. Trust me on this. If you don't trust me, ask the gallon of diesel fuel on the lawn under my oil tank.

Now you know how we feel when Brits use the word 'fire'.

;)

And squirrel :)

Hmm....I only hear one syllable. :confused: