Ever seen a red fox? I have twice. I mean live ones, not the dead ones you see squished in the middle of the road. I find it funny that being a city raised kid, that most of my introductions to critters I've heard about were first seen on the side of the road, flat and mangled.
“Huh, that was an opossum. Now I've seen what an opossum looks like, sort of.”
I never knew red foxes were that small and compact or that their coat is a dusky red. I was walking along a trail by the reservoir several years back, at sunset when I noticed some movement about fifty yards ahead of me. I looked and in time too, the thing had come to a dead halt and stiffened into a statue. I stood there in some small amazement at seeing and learning that real foxes live here. We both stared at one another for about forty seconds when I wanted a closer look. I took one step forward and the fox sprung off into the brambles. I tried to track him but I lost sight, only to hear that rustling and snapping of twigs as he bolted.
Owls. Owls are stealth fighters. You cannot hear them fly. Along a northern branch of the same trail, again I was ambling along when I saw, not hear, but saw a large bird drift over my head and rise up to land on a bough about 20 feet above me. It sat there with that tell tale owl face, looking down at me. For a second I thought he had swooped down onto me. Perhaps I walked near a nest and threatened it?
I stood there, again both of us looking at one another and was astounded that I heard nothing as it came by. No wonder mice have no chance against this.
Blue herons have come back to the river that runs by to the east of me. These things look like Section 8 housing. Broken down, ragged and unkempt. The one I saw was in the middle of the river, on one leg as they do stand and fairly large as well to my surprise. They really are blue, a dusty blue. You don't see too many blue animals in this world. But what a ratty looking bird.
Racoons, ubiquitous raccoons. These creatures are as common as starlings now. I swear they have figured out that living in suburbia is a lot easier than the forest. Why hunt for your food when you can have KFC and Spaghetti-O's by knocking over a garbage can? So much easier. One day, raccoons will have been discovered to have clogged arteries and diabetes.
On occasion, I'll find one or possibly two rummaging through my cans. The last time I saw them, I had gone out there to toss away a bag of garbage when we surprised one other. I took a few steps back as these things are known carriers of rabies, and then started making a lot of noise, stamping my feet to scare them off.
The two looked at me, blew me off and went right back to digging through the can. What balls.
“Pssshhh..another human...When we're done gorging...we'll hit up the Markenson's house, they have old food from Chello's!”
I have found out racoons don't like being sprayed with garden hoses. The took off after I tried that. They kindly left me a wonderful mess. Perfect garbage pickers they are as they open up every bag, pull out every item and then leave it scattered on the lawn.
Squirrels? Who cares. They're are a billion of them here. Chipmunks as well. They've smartened up and let themselves be domesticated enough to snatch tidbits of food from your hands now.
*****
New England really doesn't have any dangerous animals. I suppose smacking a moose at 60mph might qualify. You take out their legs and the two tons of moose meat comes crashing through your windshield, on top of you. I once knew a guy who hunted moose with a 444 Marlin. This thing is canon with it's 44 magnum slug powered by a huge amount of gunpowder. Dirty Harry's 44 is a bb gun compared to this thing.
“You can do two things. Walk up to the moose, press the muzzle into the side of the thing and fire, as they don't run. Or...come across one and you better be able to run if it's in a bad mood, they can overtake you.”
Years ago, my second attempt to climb Mt St Helens was thwarted by a landslide that had blocked the road. Since I was so far out it was a waste of time to find an alternate route, so I turned around and dicked around some smaller roads. I found one and followed it, on the south face of the mountain which surprisingly wasn't as destroyed as the north. The dirt road came to an end on an Alpine meadow filled with 20,000 ankle high flowers. I'm guessing the altitude was about 7,000 feet.
I parked the car and walked about 100 yards out, sat down and before me, the Cascade mountain range spread out for miles.
I'm a city kid. My idea of forest is Foster for God's sake. It slowly dawned on me that I wasn't in Foster when an admonition from my Portland friend, told me to stay alert for cougars. I sat there and realized that IF a cougar made a lunch of me, no one would probably know for weeks. They'd find a rental car and that's about it.
As I frightened myself further, I slowly got up, walked back to car, barely looking to the left and right should I let any cougars see me looking and blow their chance at a perfect stealth kill. They'd have to make the run now had I discovered them.
This was the real forest with real creatures, not my backyard with obese, self-entitled raccoons.
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