Don’t forget we moved!
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WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS
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@Tori said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
Right now, I have major stress about something apparently LIVING IN MY ATTIC and omfg it’s the worst while they try to figure out WHAT and HOW
Oh man, I want to know what it is!!
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@tsar I am UNSURE I DO haha. I heard it traipsing around overhead in the garage this morning and aaaaaaah. The cats are super confused. I just had a bunch of trees removed so THINGS can no longer pole-dance up to my roof but too late, too late apparently
The animal guy comes back tomorrow. STAY TUNED -
So I’ll give an actual wild encounter instead of implying that my cats are wild(they still are regardless of how lazy they all appear). This was a number of summers ago, at least ten if not 15 years ago if I recall, because I was still a smoker at that time and had just recently separated from the Air Force.
I’m out on the front porch of the house I was at that time living at. It’s in a new housing development area, so not a lot of trees. And I’m sitting there, smoking in the middle of the night. It’s quiet. When I think back, I think I heard some slight rustle, but didn’t really pay attention to it.
What did draw my attention was a sudden shrill shriek, which lasted for maybe a second, if that, before suddenly being cut-off. I’m all ‘wtf’ and doing a scan of the area, when I see in the front yard, the biggest fucking great horned owl standing there, having apparently caught some kind of rodent or other smaller animal. Maybe a rabbit? Too dark to tell. And I just stood there, watching it. Slowly, it does that thing with it’s head where it swivels almost all the way around to stare at me for a good three seconds before taking off to who knows where, whatever meal clenched in it’s claws.
I had no idea great horned owls were so fucking huge. And while I knew that I was many times this owl’s size, there was something supremely predatory in the way it was eyeballing me, as if it were sizing me up and doing a threat assessment.
It was thrilling, impressive, and somewhat terrifying all that once to watch something nature has honed into a expertly crafted hunting machine.
Owls are hardcore.
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My husband and I were on our honeymoon, driving into a national park. We came around the bend and, to our delight, saw up ahead a shadow in the road…with cute little ears! On closer inspection it turned out to be a black bear, which we had both been REALLY wanting to see on our trip.
Usually I’m pretty good about respecting-the-wildlife stuff but he reverses the car and I turn and stare at him and say, “WHY are you BACKING UP?”
He looks back at me and goes, “It’s. A. Fucking. Bear.”
And that’s how I married up.
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One time, when I was about ten years old, we went to get in our above-ground pool, but there was a bat already in there. My mom scooped it out with the net. It was unalive.
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@KarmaBum Bats scare the shit out of me. Not because they’re bats, but more that if you accidentally get bit by one, you’re probably going to have to get six shots(or more) into your stomach on the off-chance that don’t get rabies. Sadly, a lot of bats are carriers of it.
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I don’t know why, but every week or two, a spider will crawl up the back of my laptop and emerge into my view, walking over my screen like it’s trying to be one of those jumpscare GIFs.
This has happened so often that I’m no longer startled by seeing an insect crawling around near me. I have an empty candle jar nearby to scoop them up and toss them out into the wild again. And I always talk to them, too. “Hey little guy, let’s get you back outside.”
Why they love coming up the back of my screen I have no idea, haha.
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@KarmaBum One time I found a freezing little bat in the carport. I put him in a hatbox with a heating pad until he warmed up and left.
I wore heavy leather gloves for this btw.
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I have a hedgehog that plods around in my garden in the evenings. It’s friggin’ adorable.
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@lordbelh said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
I have a hedgehog that plods around in my garden in the evenings. It’s friggin’ adorable.
I AM JEALOUS
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@tsar said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
@Tori said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
Right now, I have major stress about something apparently LIVING IN MY ATTIC and omfg it’s the worst while they try to figure out WHAT and HOW
Oh man, I want to know what it is!!
Palm rats, which upon googling them look ADORABLE but not in my attic
she/her, them/they - not super particular
I have been here the whole time
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@Tori said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
@tsar said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
@Tori said in WILD ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS:
Right now, I have major stress about something apparently LIVING IN MY ATTIC and omfg it’s the worst while they try to figure out WHAT and HOW
Oh man, I want to know what it is!!
Palm rats, which upon googling them look ADORABLE but not in my attic
Oh nooooooo
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@Tori Yeah, no thanks. No rodents in the house, please. Unless they’re in a cage/enclosure. Then they’re cool.
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My cats have been murder spreeing my rodent problem. As of last night they have killed 13 since I brought them home. … so I definitely have/had a rodent problem. @Tori can you set Lizzie loose in the attic or would this risk her precious wiggly body?
let it be a challenge to you
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@sao Serial killers in action.
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Porch lizard!
eta I’m pretty sure I airdropped this to a complete stranger, I hope they enjoy it.
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@lordbelh I’m afraid so. At one point I witnessed my 14 month old cat, Heimdall, shove a mouse back into its hiding place with his big paw because he decided he wasn’t done playing cat-and-mouse with it. Really awful. I thought he was a himbo but actually he’s a terror.
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@sao My old cat was a terror, too. I know their ways from first hand experience.
If only all they murdered were pests! Anytime he brought home a lil birdie, though, I felt guilty as hell. I know its a wildlife problem.They’re so cute and loving at home. Outside the door, they’re mass murdering psychopaths.
