It’s Friday, so I decided to walk to Baby Greens to get lunch, as I often do at the end of the week. As I walked, I kept an eye out for fallen pecans to take home and leave out for our squirrels.
I saw one at the end of the street, and picked it up. As I did so, I heard a noise. I looked up, and a squirrel was sitting in the pecan tree, barking at me for stealing his nut. I tossed it back on the ground. He stopped and stared at me. I apologized and walked on.
There’s a pair of cardinals that unexpectedly began to visit us each day.
Obviously, I named them Biggles and Fang.
Amongst their weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the pope, and pointy orange beaks.
Unfortunately, they’re small, and tend to fly away if I go anywhere near them with a camera, so no pictures yet. However, Biggles sometimes attacks his reflection in the window, so maybe some day…
On Friday, I was gazing out into the back yard when I saw a hawk swoop towards the house, turn to the side at the last moment, and try to grab a squirrel from the fence.
I’m glad to report that he failed, but the squirrel was clearly very disturbed by his near death encounter. He leapt onto the trunk of the nearest tree, and called out—a type of sound I hadn’t heard from a squirrel before. It was a kind of squeak, starting low in pitch and going higher. I’m assuming it’s squirrel for “Holy crap, guys, look out, there’s a bird of prey around!”
I found the missing gecko. He had crawled into the wastebasket. Tonight was trash night, and I emptied it into a black sack, then put the sack in the trash—at which point the gecko shot out into the bin.
I managed to catch him in a jar, and took a good look at him. Definitely a mediterranean gecko. I took him out to the back yard, and released him under the deck to rejoin his family.
There is a gecko somewhere in my office.
Not sure how he got into the house, but he was spotted in the downstairs bathroom. We attempted to catch him—for his own safety, and purely out of concern for his wellbeing—but he hid behind a box of PC parts and a stationery cabinet.
So mental note to self for tomorrow morning: tread carefully.
Today I saw a wasp starting to build a nest in the corner of the back porch. I made a mental note to hose him away some time tomorrow.
Then tonight, we came home to find 4 geckos of various sizes gathered on the back porch—and one of them was eating the wasp.
In case the cockroach wasn’t enough:
We went to the Post Office. About a block away from our house, we encountered a car that had stopped to let a snake cross a driveway.
The snake was about a meter long, brown, with diamond patterning. He didn’t seem to have a rattle.
He probably eats squirrels…
Update: probably an Eastern Hognose Snake.
We now have at least 4 different squirrels visiting us on a regular basis. I know this because I’ve seen all 4 in the garden at once. We put up a squirrel bungee with a corn cob on the end, and often one aboreal rodent will chow at the feed box while another gets some exercise. They occasionally chase each other, but they don’t seem to be too territorial yet; maybe later in the year?
The downside of being the #1 brunch destination for Bouldin Creek squirrels is that between them, the critters can easily go through an entire ear of corn in one day.
We’ve also got more lizards. We found two just outside the back door one night. They were pinkish-white and sitting on white paint, but were otherwise very similar to the brown lizard spotted on the wood floor, so I’m guessing that they are color-changing lizards of some kind.
Finally, we’ve had a couple of sightings of the white peacock which lives with the regular peacocks at the restaurant up the street. It’s strange—it’s like a normal peacock that god built from an Airfix model kit but couldn’t be bothered to paint.
There’s a jumping spider in the room. He is quite the most speedy, agile and cunning spider I have ever encountered. Just now he leapt up and grabbed a power cord to use as an easy route behind the Linux box. He can jump over 20cm, and can spot an upturned beaker at a similar distance and recognize it as hostile.
Since he’s only about 1.5cm across, I’m not too bothered by him. However, I do find myself worrying about his larger relatives. I just tried to find out what specific kind of jumping spider he is, but the enlarged photo on the web site I found made my skin crawl so badly I had to close the browser.
Anyway, I’ve managed to catch him and release him outside in the bushes…
Driving back to Austin tonight we almost hit a porcupine.
Q: What’s the difference between a porcupine and an SUV?
A: A porcupine has the pricks on the outside.