Wildlife moment

I didn’t get any of this on camera as my camera was outside in my vehicle, but we had a wildlife moment out back this morning. It started with my son spotting an animal at the edge of the yard. He came to me to verify its identity. It was a bobcat. So, the two of us watched the bobcat for a minute or two as it sat quietly, interested in something we couldn’t see in the distance. Then, just like that, the cat disappeared to the woods along the river. Minutes later, our house cat trotted out back, obviously picking up on the scent of the bobcat. As our cat stalked the area where the bobcat had been, his attention was also drawn to the same area that had intrigued the bigger cat. We couldn’t see what the cat was checking out behind a small hill, thick brush, and some young trees. Then charged a doe, snorting and lowering her head. The deer took four or five aggressive steps towards our cat. Now the deer was right behind our deck and our cat had run full speed to our sliding door where I let him in. The deer turned for the woods after noticing me. But, our yard full of clover was too much to resist. The deer sauntered back down the grade to the grass. Meanwhile, our cat was whining incessantly to go back outside, so I let him onto the deck. The cat saw the deer and stayed put behind the deck railing. The deer saw the cat and did an about-face, turning toward the deck and lowering her head again. The deer kept her distance before deciding to gracefully high-tail it back in to the woods, snorting for all to hear along the way. And thus was the start to my day; fifteen minutes of entertainment, just by looking out the window.

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Look at what the cat dragged in

This morning we had our sliding glass doors open so the twins could play inside and out. We do this often, when it’s mild enough, allowing the twins to play outside on the deck, and run in and out. This time of year there’s no real bug problem even with the screen doors open. Today, however, presented a different problem though.

While I was focused on Theodore and Jacqueline, playing with them, I hadn’t noticed the cat coming and going through the open doors. Our two-year old twins were playing in one corner of the play area. We were laughing and carrying on when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. We all know how quickly the mind can shoot a series of thoughts through our brains in an instant. Well my first thought was that something doesn’t look quite right. Then as I took an instant subconscious inventory of our toys, I knew we didn’t have anything that fit the fleeting image I had seen out of the corner of my eye. So, as I did a double-take, the object at the edge of my sight came into clear view. There on the floor, right near Theodore’s bare feet, was a Common Garter Snake. Our cat, Demetrius, had brought the snake into the house.

I yanked Theodore out of the play area. As a man shouldn’t, I didn’t scream. I made sure the snake wasn’t going anywhere. It stayed pretty still as the cat batted at it a few times. Our cat has no front claws so this was a game of ‘bat the snake’. The snake didn’t seem overly impressed by the whole thing. I quickly put on some gloves, grabbed the snake by the tail, and put it back out in the yard. The snake seemed a bit traumatized, but it slowly slithered away.

I closed the sliding doors after coming back inside. The twins were excited by the events that had just happened. For the next hour, every crumb, every hair, every little thing that didn’t look quite right around the house, was a snake. They were yelling, “Snake! Snake! Snake!” at everything. It was pretty funny. Even after their naps, they were talking about the snake, and looking for the snake on the deck and out back. All in all, it was just another twin adventure. I am glad this was nothing serious.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this piece.

Scared of a cat

I took this quick picture of a pair of white-tailed deer that suddenly appeared on the little hill next to our house. I took this picture through the window with my smaller lens on the camera so it didn’t come out so well. While I was standing there looking at them, they suddenly turned and ran. I looked to my left to see if a car was coming up the driveway and scared them. Nothing. I looked to my right to see our house cat cautiously creeping from boulder to boulder as if he were hunting. Then the cat turned directly toward the deer, and the deer ran back into the woods. So, that was it, the deer were just scared of a cat.