Live from Austin!

The other day I was playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow when I saw something move across the floor near the kitchen.

“Oh crap,” I thought, “Another cockroach.”

I got up and grabbed something to squash it with. But it wasn’t a cockroach—it was a tiny lizard. He was approximately floor colored; brown with light brown stripes. I carefully caught him in a spare perspex dish from the refrigerator. He turned out to have sucker feet, and crawled up the side of it. I let him out in the garden.

So, I think it’s time for an update on the local wildlife.

Continue reading »

It was quite a good day. We were walking home along Mass Ave. Suddenly, I saw him. A skunk. Lying dead on the sidewalk.

From the looks of him, he had been young and healthy. His stripes were a clean white color. His body was intact, and his soft, fluffy fur blew gently in the afternoon breeze. He was utterly still, and clearly very dead, his tail straight and his paws limp. The only sign of injury was a slight trickle of blood from his mouth.

My guess is that someone hit him with their car, stopped, picked him up by the tail, and laid him out on the sidewalk. He was only very slightly stinky, so I’m guessing that he died instantly and didn’t even have time to spray in panic. A few ants were just starting to explore his corpse.

We stood and looked at him for a while. I considered what, if anything, I should do. It seemed like petting him wouldn’t be a good idea, no matter how appealingly fluffy and safely dead he looked. I briefly considered giving him an illegal burial—Massachusetts state law makes it illegal to move skunks, and I expect that applies to dead ones as well as living ones. I decided the benefits didn’t really outweigh the risks.

Then I thought about taking a picture. Somehow it seemed like a rude thing to do. Besides, I want pictures of live skunks, not dead ones.

A passing car slowed down for the traffic lights, and the passengers saw the body. I confirmed to them that yes, it was a skunk. One of them made a surprised comment about how cute it was.

I realized there was nothing to do, really, except leave him there for the city to clean up. Just another dead skunk. Dozens must die on the roads every day, yet still it was a shock, seeing a cute animal lying dead on the sidewalk.

I think the saddest thing, for me, is that that’s the closest I’ve been to a skunk: a dead one.

Boston Globe:

Neighborhood skunk treated like pet

By Associated Press, 6/9/2003

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo.—Residents on Willow Street in this southeast Missouri town find the skunk roaming their neighborhood charming and anything but a stinker.

This skunk apparently likes people, even following neighbors around and brushing against their legs like a cat.

Since making its presence known a couple of years ago, the olfactory-offending animal has become a fixture around Willow Street.

“He really took up with a woman who lived down the road,” said Margie Timmons. “He would wait for her at her mailbox at night when she would get home from work.”

A cute couple of pictures from Yahoo: Life imitates a Pepe Le Pew cartoon.

Last weekend was a big skunk show in Ohio. One of the events was the skunk fancy dress contest. I gather from the mailing list that one of the contestants had dressed his skunk in yellow “Police Line – Do Not Cross” tape, and had actually managed to train it: when he said ‘dead skunk’, it would roll over and play dead like it was roadkill. When he said ‘live skunk’, it would jump up again. Amazing.

It’s the season for skunk babies! Lots of people on the pet skunk list are getting new skunk kittens, and posting photos of them. They’re so cute! Little fuzzy stinky bundles of joy…

I’m back. Still got the cold, but I’m determined to make it through some of my mail. Like the 800 messages from the skunk mailing list.

It seems that 0.8% of Salon readers think it’s worth paying for. As many as that?

I think the spoilsports at Animal Control have abducted Monsieur Mouffard. It’s weeks since I caught a whiff of his enchanting musk.

This is probably as good a time as any to write more about skunks.

We don’t have skunks in England, so I was really excited when I first saw one late one evening. I watched it turn a corner and snuffle off. I knew what it was from watching TV.

“Wow,” I said, “It’s a skunk!”

Genuine North American wildlife! I started to follow it, closing in to get a better look. Sara grabbed me firmly.

“No, mathew, don’t chase the skunk.”

In retrospect, it was a good thing she was there to stop me. I knew skunks could spray, but at the time I didn’t realize they had a range of over four meters.

Having survived my first encounter with mephitis mephitis, I started to develop a certain affection for the little critters. They’re awfully fluffy and cute, even if they do occasionally waft their musky scent through our neighborhood. We even named our local skunk—he’s known as Monsieur Mouffard. (For some reason skunks have to be French. It’s just one of those things.)

A few days later, I had a dream about a skunk. I dreamt was outside our house, when suddenly M. Mouffard came running towards me and leapt into my arms. I held him for a few moments, before giving in to the urge to pet his soft fur. He began to talk to me. He said that he was cold and hungry, and could he sleep under our porch? I agreed, and said I’d feed him, so long as he promised not to spray near the house. He promised.

In real life I haven’t fed M. Mouffard, so perhaps that’s why he hasn’t kept his side of the bargain. I woke up last night at around 2am, and discovered that he had left his calling card. Judging from the nasal assault, someone had annoyed him right outside our bedroom window. I began to get a sense for what it would be like to experience a direct hit, as my stomach churned and I fought off a growing sense of nausea.

Still, he’s darn cute.