Animal Sightings

There was a dog at the office and for most of the day we weren't allowed to greet him because he was training to be a service dog, but at tea time he was given a break so we all went to pet him and give him scritches while he "surreptitiously" tried to vacuum up all the popcorn people dropped on the floor.
Scare quotes because he's a ten month old golden retriever and so can't do anything surreptitiously.

Also last week I saw a deer and while deer are generally vermin, this one did a pretty sweet flip to avoid a car while crossing a highway. Didn't entirely stick the landing, but hey, any crash you can walk away from.

 

Not one, but two stray cats showed up at my window!

Spoiler

 

A bit of context: Last summer, something was killing our chickens; the winter before that, out neighbor's horse died.

So I was sneaking into my neighbor's property to steal some horse bones from up in the meadow, but they were really heavy, so i sat them down to rest for a second. As i stood there catching my breath, a full grown red fox wandered out of the forest-y border between my property and the neighbor's (about 20 yards away), took 5 steps, saw me, made direct eye contact for 4 seconds, then turned around and trotted back into the woods.

I stood there for another 5 seconds, dropped the bones I was still holding, and flat out sprinted into the woods screaming "YOU FUcKING CHICKEN KILLER" for a few minutes. I did not see the fox again.

 

Also!! The other day on my way home from school I passed a tree absolutely COVERED in buzzards. They didn't even move when i stopped my car to get out and snap a pic. It was extra weird and magical because a) this is a deserted holler with nothing but trees and a creek on one side, and b) I didn't see anything dead.

Spoiler: buzzards

 

Nah its not weird, they just like to hang out together sometimes. Theyre very social c: ive seen groups as big as 20 just hanging around in fields and stuff.

Onto my sighting- well not mine actually, but- my mom saw two adult bald eagles on the way home from work, just chilling by the side of the road eating a dead oppossum lol. She said she got about 10 feet away before they flew off a ways to wait for her to pass. We've only seen one pair thats stayed around here during the summer, and it was the same area so it was probably the same ones. I guess theyre gonna stay the winter again c:

 

Am I the only one who finds it hilarious that bald eagles only look majestic if you know nothing about them? I mean, they're fish eagles that will also eat carrion when they can get it, and when they open their beaks it's less 'majestic screeching cry of a red-tailed kite' and more 'there is a seagull here on helium'. XD

Also I thought you guys might appreciate this post XD ('STRAYA :D It reminds me of when I was a little kid and sometimes we'd go on picnics wherein goannas - lace monitors - would come by and stare at you until you caved and tossed them boiled eggs or a bit of sandwich meat. They were entirely unintimidated by any scare tactics - the only way to get them to leave was to give them what they wanted XD )

 

My mom worked in Alaska as a Fish and Wildlife person for many years, and saw all sorts of great animals. Her favorite bald eagle story is about an individual who completely misjudged their stoop on a fish and went crashing straight into the water. They had to flop-swim-wade out and were the most ungainly thing all soaked through.

 

I met a handsome feral boy outside the gas station today

 

Bunny!

 

I saw a raccoon crawl out of a storm sewer the other day. It was the size of a dog.

 

Did you know racoons can fit through holes as small as 2 1/2 by 4 inches. They can like collapse their spine and shit to go completely flat like a hellish garbage eating pancake. I love them

 

@Deresto no I didn't know that, holy shit I may never sleep again D:

 

You icon is just the perfect representation of that face right now XD

 

@Lizardlicks
D: o: D: o:

 

Wait, 2.5 inches by 4 inches? Wh... i mean, i know rats can do something similar and fit their whole body thru any space big enough for their head. Is that the approximate size of a raccoon's head, that just seems ridiculously tiny to me (admittedly i was brought up on centimetres so i dont know instinctively how big an inch is lol)

 

Oh!! I have a story!

So several years back, before my grandparents house had wifi.. they had a i think windows 7 or vista computer, one of the ones that came with like a million games, but you only had 2-3 plays for each game before you had to start paying for them. So my grandparents didnt care at all about them, so I would play them at night. This was in summer, the night was fairly warm so the window behind and a bit above me was still open, though the metal screen was shut.
My sister was stood behind me watching me play, and absentmindedly scratching the window with her nail.
Then she heard a scratch in return.
She turned, and, sitting on the woodpile that went up to the window, sniffing at her hand, was a teenage raccoon!!
He was super adorable.. he would bumble a bit out of our sight to grab some bugs to eat before coming back and sniffing our hands, little claws on the screen of the window :D

 

the dog sized raccoon probably couldn't fit through a hole that size, but a reasonably sized, not very fat racoon could. About half of their diameter comes from fluff in the first place and they're flexible little buggers. To give you an idea of size, I have medium-small hands. My pinky is about 2.5 inches long and my hand is about 4 inches wide at the widest part. That's a pretty reasonable size for a small carnivore. It's only a little bigger than a cat's head, if I'm measuring correctly

 

yeah, the coon in question was probably 30ish lbs so no way it could fit through an opening that small, but a younger, smaller raccoon certainly could. or a squirrel. those things can get just about everywhere

 

THERE ARE GREYHOUNDS IN CHRISTMAS SWEATERS HERE

GREYHOUNDS IN CHRISTMAS SWEATERS

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

 

I saw a cat on a leash yesterday! For a split second i thought it was my cat because they looked exactly the same except a: boo refuses to walk on a leash and b: the other cat had normal paws. Her name was gracie and she was very sweet ans curious.