Intrusions at the Hacienda

The last couple of days have been interesting in terms of the local wildlife. Day before yesterday I heard Susannah yelling in the living room and rushed to see what had happened. She had opened the door to go out, and for some reason a humming bird had flown in and headed for the window to go back out again. Unfortunately for the hummer the window was closed and before Susannah could do anything Amber, the cat, was up on the window sill, the bird was batted to the floor and the prcess of digestion started. I arrived in time to see the tail vanish. Amber was evicted since we figured the feathers were going to quickly come back up.

I hate to lose a hummer, although the truth is we have more than enough to feed two cats. Right now the population is high enough to go through about a half gallon of sugar water a day, and the consumption is increasing as the word gets out that high quality food is available at Mike and Susannah's place. Fascinating, two feeders, 8 spots to feed from total, and both birds are fighting for the same spot! While fascinating to watch, and really beautiful, they have no manners or social graces at all.

Right now we have green birds with black heads and red throats, but any time now the rufus birds will arrive in great numbers. They look like burnished pennies, bright copper with a red throat that seems to glow like a burning coal. Nope, manners are just as bad as their cousins, they are just prettier.

Then yesterday, as I struggled to wake up over my first cup of coffee while staring blearily at the computer screen in the study there was a a scream of "Michal, there's a snake in the door!" Now I admit, I wasn't quite fully awake, and I was trying to picture how a snake could be in the door. Perhaps embedded in the wood? Anyway I rushed to the living room, and from under the front door about a foot and a half of bull snake (also known as a gopher snake) tail twisted and turned. Opening the door, hoping not to hurt it, drug it inside where it tried to make an escape. No luck! We have laminated flooring, and apparently the stuff is just too slick for a snake to make progress, so mostly it just wiggled from side to side having no success in making progress.

I guess I should have grabbed my camera and gotten some pictures since it was pretty young, only about 2.5 feet long, and its skin was bright and shinny. I suspect if we really looked around we could find the skin that it had probably just shed. Oh well, forgot about that as I put on a pair of gloved and finally managed to pick it up despite the fact that it was moving as fast as it could, but not going anywhere. I don't mind handling non-poisonous snakes but do take the precaution of wearing gloves just in case they get too frightened and try biting when first picked up. Generally they settle down in just a minute or two and after that are safe to handle.

No problem with this one, it had a one track mind and that was to go someplace else. So we carried it out into the woods where I hope it can escape both cats and dogs. And as we walked along it found it could move in my gloved hands and so headed out, from one hand to another as fast as it could go, probably about as fast as I was walking had it been on the ground. When we reached the woods near my work shop I let it go onto the ground and it kept on going as fast as it could into the trees and grass, hopefully to grow a bit and keep the mouse population down a bit. Most likely it will also have an effect on the grasshoppers, the lizards, and best of all, on other snakes. Rattle snakes have not been seen around our property, but they are most certainly in our area, so the production of bull snakes is highly encouraged.

As I watched out the window this morning while exercising, the dog and the phoebes were competing to see who could catch and eat the most bugs. At least I guess that was what they were eating. Chaco just gobbles them up, the phoebe would catch one, go bang it on a rock and then either eat it or take it up to the nest. Haven't poked my head up to see if it was feeding its mate or newly hatched chicks. Since I generally see only one at a time out, I suspect that they are still next sitting. They present quite a drama as they swoop and then hoover, standing still in the air, then dropping to grab a bug. Or sometimes swooping down to catch one out of the air. Between them and the humming birds I sometimes wonder if it is safe to walk out onto the pourch. I can picture one of them stuck in me like a arrow in a tree.

I wonder what I next adventure with the local wildlife will be.

Hugs,

Mike L