I love animals. No, I LOVE animals. And growing up in Chicago, aside from my cats, the occassional racoon or possum, and the resident centipedes, I was fauna deprived.
Not so in Wisconsin. Here it’s a veritable zoo of wild little beasties! Usually, I just regale Fresh with stories of what I saw today, but heck! If you’ve got a captive audience, why not share? From here on out, my wildlife sightings (usually accompanied by someone else’s photos…I’m not so quick on the draw).
August 20, 2009
I have not been so good at sharing my critter sightings. Maybe because I’m currently more obsessed with what I have NOT seen. Three weeks in the UP–going on five years of summer and winter and the occasional autumn in the UP–and still no moose, porcupine, or bear spotting. We did think we saw mountain lion tracks on the beach at Great Sand Bay, but no dice–dog prints. Probably a golden retriever. Doh!
What we did see this trip: Many, many bald eagles and vultures floating on the air currents. Many, many chipmunks begging for peanuts. Many, many daddy long legs trying to invade my sleeping bag. A baby deer. A coyote hanging out on the side of the road. A crane flapping high above. A momma merganser and her babies hanging out on the rocks on Lake Huron. A momma loon and her lil chicks on the rocks in Lake Huron. A thousand sea gulls.
April 22, 2009
A desert tortoise in Joshua Tree NP
I cannot even begin to tell you how many critters I have seen in the past few weeks. The loons on Lake Monona were out of control for a week or so in early April. I even watched one catch a fish! Driving down East Wash one day, there were also a pair of red-tailed hawks that were playing/fighting/mating about a hundred feet above me in the sky. It was so cool, I almost got in an accident. Then I went to London, which is teeming with wildlife. Really. And not just the punk rock kind. A fox was running around me as I walked home from the Tube in South Kensington (and then I couldn’t stop singing Belle and Sebastian, “Fox in the Snow,” for the rest of the trip). And Regents Park is filled with birds: Coots. Herons. Egrets. Wood Ducks. Pin-tail Ducks. Ducks I couldn’t even identify. It was astonishing, and my friend Judy learned I am a bird freak. Then I went to California. In Joshua Tree, I saw a jackrabbit, whose big ears and black butt make me smile; a desert tortoise; and a gajillion lizards. Two trips to two different zoos racked up the spottings, but I won’t count those. Not even the Harlequin Ducks (who were really cool, by the way). To top it all off, flying home and making the landing in Minneapolis, I look out the window and what do I see flying about 10,000 feet below me? A cardinal, it’s bright red body standing out against the brown-gray of the Minnesota landscape. What a month for critters!
March 27, 2009
Holy bird day! Spring has apparently sprung–at least for today. The lakes are completely melted, the sun is out, joggers are strutting their pasty legs in shorts. Which means that, until the next blizzard hits (Sunday, I think), we’ve got spring feverish animals. And man…those birds. Within thirty minutes today, I saw three of my favorite Wisconsin residents. Lake Monona was filled with common loons–so close to shore you could actually see the rings on their necks. And that’s truly unusual–if you’re lucky, you might spot the tell-tale profile of a loon out in the middle of the lake right before it dives under. Also, Monona Bay welcomed back its resident flock of American coots; they’ll be here, floating, running, and diving, until at least December. Sometimes they stay through the whole winter. And as I was driving to work on the East Side, I thought I saw a paper bag swirling in the sky above me on East Washington, but nope! This was no bag–just a pair of red-tailed hawks swooping and…playing? fighting? mating? Not sure exactly, but it was still cool.
Top: A flock of American coots; Middle: A common loon with baby; Bottom: A red-tailed hawk in flight
March 26, 2009
Spring has kind of sprung…except for the blizzard slated for this weekend. A sure sign of the warm weather right around the corner: Today I spotted a cardinal!
Fortunately, not in the same place as the turkey vulture swirling dangerously close to the ground. I wonder what carcass the melting snow had just exposed….
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