Category Archives: Animals

Frolicking adolescent armadillos

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I have written about our relatively recently arrived armadillos before. They have made themselves at home here in northwest Georgia in the last few years. We never saw armadillos when I was growing up here. The animal they remind me of the most is the possum. They both seem slow and a little dense, which I think accounts for the most noticeable sign of their presence here — dead armadillos in the road.

There are other signs of the armadillo’s presence, the most significant of which is the holes they dig while looking for food. I used to see holes in our old yard, and I see them along Fouche Gap Road when I walk the dogs.

The most noticeable sign of their actual presence, as opposed to their former presence, is the sounds they make while rooting around in the undergrowth. I sometimes hear squirrels and deer, but their noises are distinctly different from the armadillo, mainly because armadillos seem to show no fear of humans or dogs. Squirrels and deer run; armadillos keep rooting around, apparently oblivious to everything around them.

Zeke, Sam and I happened to notice some armadillo noises a few days ago when we walked down Flouche Gap Road into Texas Valley. We couldn’t see anything, but the dogs were very interested. I was pretty sure it was an armadillo because whatever it was just kept on making noise.

A few days later we saw them in the same place. That set the dogs off, of course. Here they are homing in on one of them.

The armadillo is almost hidden just above the white stripe at the edge of the road, right where Sam’s ears are pointed. I couldn’t get a better shot while keeping the dogs under control.

Zeke has a history with adolescent armadillos. I posted about that episode four years ago almost to the day. In that case, Zeke managed to break away from me and quickly dispatch one. The armadillo’s fearless behavior is consistent with the reason given for their spread into the southeastern US, that is, they have no natural predators here. Except for Zeke.

Wikipedia says that our armadillos, the nine-banded variety, usually have four offspring. (Wayne, whose used to comment here occasionally and whose blog Niches I still miss, also said they usually have four offspring.) When we saw the young armadillos four years ago, there were two. I am pretty sure there were two this time as well. These acted like the unfortunate one of four years ago; they showed absolutely no fear of me or the dogs. Like those of four years ago, these were frolicking around like puppies. Fortunately for them, Zeke has gotten old enough that he didn’t break his collar to get to them.

The mockingbird’s inventory

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“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

There is a mockingbird that claims a good portion of our yard. It starts singing early in the morning and goes on all day. It switches between a couple of large oaks on the far side of our driveway and the twisted maple at the edge of our front yard. I recorded a minute or so of its song.

mockingbird

The bird is at the top of the maple, only a speck in this movie. It’s amazing that such a small bird can make such a big song. There is also another songbird singing its own song at the same time. I recognize a a lot of the mockingbird’s songs, but I can identify only a few of the birds being mocked.

Although I didn’t catch it in this clip, this mockingbird includes a whip-poor-will’s song as well as a blue jay’s. I wonder if they ever sing the pileated woodpecker’s song.

The quote from To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t really right about what mockingbirds do; their singing happens to please us, but of course it’s not singing for our pleasure. It’s actually a way to attract mates and claim territory. According to birders, only bachelor mockingbirds sing at night. That means the mockingbird that was singing outside the ICU the night my father died was a bachelor. It was a warm night, even though it was late winter. A window was open, so we could hear the mockingbird. It sounded like it was right next to the window. You might imagine that hearing a mockingbird’s song on the night my father died would spoil their singing for me, but it didn’t work that way. There’s not a sound in nature much better than a mockingbird’s song.

 

Pet sitter tales

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I’ve learned a couple of things in the last few days.

The first is that a whole lot of people who want to be pet sitters read the local newspaper. We really need a pet sitter, so we bought an ad for a month. So far more than a dozen people have responded. We have met four so far.

There’s the divorced mother of one who lives with her own mother down at the other end of Texas Valley. Then there’s the young woman who just moved to town. She works part time at a chain bookstore and plans to give her two weeks’ notice on another part-time job. She has a degree in meteorology and geography. Another young woman does bookwork for her brother’s business.

We just talked to a woman who also lives in Texas Valley who lost her husband in a car wreck last year. She went to a pet store to buy some cat collars and ended up adopting a black lab mix. She said she thought when she heard the dog’s story that she was going to rescue the dog, but the dog ended up rescuing her.

Another woman had rescued about 40 cats some years ago. She got them spayed and neutered and then took care of them until, one by one, they all died of old age.

I found out when I worked as a reporter many years ago that everyone has a story, and they all want to tell it. All you have to do is listen. They aren’t necessarily big stories, but they’re big enough to them. And, sometimes, it really is a big story. I used to live down the street from an older couple. I usually spoke to them when I walked my dog past their house. Eventually I learned that the man had been on a Southern Airways flight from Huntsville, Al, to Atlanta in 1977 when it ran into a severe thunderstorm over Rome, lost both engines, and then crash landed on a rural highway in the little town of New Hope. He told about walking out of the plane, shielding his face from the flames with his hands, while other passengers sat in their seats, struggling to get out without realizing that their seatbelts were still fastened. Seventy-two people died, including seven on the ground.

So, if you listen long enough, you hear the story, big or small.

But that’s not the other thing I learned. That other thing I learned is that I would really like to say yes to all the people who want to pet sit for us, or at least most of them. Unfortunately, we just need one. We’re leaning toward the divorced mother of one, but we still have five possibilities to interview.

I wish we could get someone to find a pet sitter for us so we wouldn’t have to say no to anyone. But then we wouldn’t get to hear their stories.

Deer season

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It’s deer season in Georgia. I know that deer season for regular firearms starts sometime in  late fall and lasts into early the next year. I checked online for the exact dates (Oct 21 through Jan 14), but that’s not how I figured it out.

We have heard one loud gunshot. I heard it when I was walking the dogs and Leah heard it at home. It came from the woods on the other side of Fouche Gap Road, where there is a large tract of land used for hunting, plus the Berry College campus, which also allows hunting. But it wasn’t gunfire that made me aware of deer season.

I have seen a couple of pickup trucks parked along Fouche Gap Road that had the look of a deer hunter’s truck. But that wasn’t what made me aware of deer season.

No, it wasn’t those things. It was the stink of rotting deer carcasses thrown off the side of the road. That unpleasant aroma has been strong at several places along the road for several weeks. The dogs are very interested in what’s causing that smell, but I don’t let them investigate. A few days ago Zeke escaped and ran immediately to one of the carcasses, where he rolled and rolled. When we found him he had an overcoat of something black and stinking. It was all around his neck. Of course he had to have a bath before he could come back inside.

Sometimes the carcass is not visible. Sometimes the remains have been stuffed into plastic bags. Sometimes you can see ribs where apparently some portion of the edible meat has been cut away. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. A couple of days ago I saw one deer where it was obvious what the hunter wanted. The entire, intact deer was lying in the leaves, minus the head.

I wonder what portion of deer hunters our carcass dumpers represent.