Category Archives: Animals

The Berry Eagle

Posted on by

I mentioned in an earlier post that someone had dumped a deer carcass near the intersection of Fouche Gap Road and Lavender Trail, not far from our house. On Saturday our neighbor stopped to talk when I was walking the dogs. He said that a bald eagle had been feeding on the deer carcass. I didn’t see it when we went down the mountain, but when we came back up, it was feeding. I stopped as soon as I saw it and took some pictures. Unfortunately, all I had was my phone, which has a wide angle lens.

eagle on deer_atadistanceThe eagle is the little speck that looks like it’s part of the shadows where the road curves back to the left. If you squint and take my word for it, you can see the bird standing on the carcass. Here’s a blowup that’s not much better.

eagle pointed out

I tried to get closer, but as soon as I moved, the eagle saw me and immediately flew up into a tree.

eagleintree

The image quality is not good, but it’s the best I could do with the phone. I cropped down as far as I could without losing too much detail.  I took my little Canon with a short telephoto lens on my dog walks on Sunday and Monday but didn’t see the eagle. I’m afraid the deer carcass is so worked over now that the eagle may not come back.

This was almost certainly one of a pair that has been nesting on Berry College property for the last few years. Berry has a Web cam at the nesting site. According to Berry’s Web page, this is the “first documented nest in the modern history of Floyd County.” There are two eagle nests on the Berry campus, but it’s not clear whether there are two nesting pairs. One nest is close to the main entrance of the college, and the other is somewhere on Lavender Mountain in an inaccessible area. The inaccessible nest is probably only a few miles from our house.

One pair has laid, hatched and fledged eaglets from the accessible nest.

Berry College had planned to construct an athletic facility near where one nest is located but has moved the construction site away to avoid interfering with the eagles.

I have never seen a bald eagle in Georgia, so it was a real thrill to see this one. There is an eagle nest on an old bridge over the Tennessee River near Scottsboro, Alabama. I used to cross that bridge almost every week when I worked in Huntsville, and I am pretty sure I saw an eagle on that nest on one occasion. The only other time I have seen eagles is when Leah and I visited Alaska on our honeymoon in 2005.

Representatives of the deer-hunting population

Posted on by

I know there must be plenty of responsible deer hunters around here. They must identify their target before they shoot and have the skill to kill it quickly. They must take the dead deer out of the woods and either butcher it or have it done by someone else. They must eat the meat or donate it to someone who needs or wants it. They may keep the head or pelt as a trophy, or they may not.

I know there must be plenty of them around here, but all I see is evidence of the other kind. Last year I saw five or six deer carcasses that had been thrown off the road over the mountain. So far this year I have seen two. The first was a small deer that was lying behind a large tree just off the side of the road. Its head had been removed, but nothing else. I saw that one about two weeks ago. The second was a larger deer that had been left at the side of the road near the intersection of Fouche Gap Road and Lavender Trail. It has been skinned, but nothing else had been taken. The meat the head were still on the carcass.

Of course the responsible hunters don’t do things like that, so all I see is evidence that deer hunters are irresponsible, wasteful and inconsiderate. And I think that’s a generous characterization.

Green on blue

Posted on by

This little green anole was perched on the last blue hydrangea bloom on the plant.

anole on blue

I didn’t have a camera when I saw it, so I ran inside and grabbed one. I thought it would be gone before I got back, but it stayed. It didn’t stay long; as soon as I got near, it disappeared into the blue.

On the Zoe front, still no news. We have placed an ad in the local newspaper, but it won’t appear until Tuesday. I’m not quite ready to give up on his return, but I have to admit I think the probability is small and shrinking.

Come Back, Little Zoe

Posted on by

Our cat Zoe has disappeared. Leah let him out Thursday night around 11. He ate a little dry food in the garage and we haven’t seen him since. Normally when he stays out overnight, he’s at the door first thing for his food. But not Friday morning.

We’ve looked in all the places he frequents, but there is absolutely no sign of him.

We’ve had cats that stay outside ever since we moved up here, and, although there are potential predators around, there have never been any problems. I have seen coyotes in the woods and on Fouche Gap Road some distance away, but we have never seen one anywhere near the house. I don’t think foxes are responsible; they have eaten cat food in the driveway with the cats looking on, and the cats and the foxes never bother each other.

Zoe doesn’t stray far from the house, so we don’t think he has wandered off and found a new home. Besides, all of our closer neighbors know who he belongs to, so they would let us know.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

So far he has been missing for 24 hours. We haven’t completely given up hope that he will show up again. He hasn’t been the most rewarding cat to own, but Leah is really attached to him.

Another cat food thief

Posted on by

Faithful readers might remember that we have had problems with foxes eating the cat food that Leah puts out in the driveway. Possums and raccoons have also treated the cat food as their own, personal buffet. Now we have another type of wildlife eating the cat food.

daddy longlegs

Daddy longlegs (opiliones) are an interesting arachnid. This one was eating a single piece of cat food that had spilled from the tray. Click on the image for a larger view where you can tell the daddy longlegs’ body from the piece of cat food. This one fed for quite a while, but at least it didn’t eat much.