Monday, September 20, 2010

the stories continue

I knew I was forgetting something.

Sister visited Saturday afternoon to see what I'd gotten at the plant sale. She brought along the dog, Snoopy.  Such a sweetie. He is part beagle and loves all the different smells here, and is always trying to get to any of the groundhog burrows. His nose is always to the ground! Even though he is only part beagle he certainly has all the beagle traits.

(If you are easily upset or sensitive about death in nature, you may want to skip this paragraph)

We went on top of the bank to look at some of my plants, and snoopy almost immediately was rooting around in some brush and came up with a bird. He quickly trotted off the bank and went to the other side of the yard.   I was taken aback by how quickly and quietly it happened.   While not something I want to see, I was impressed with his quickness and dexterity in dispatching the dove to its death.  Unlike many house pets that will 'play' an animal to the point of injury and walk away.  Not Snoopy.  Not only did he quickly kill it, he also quickly consumed it.  That really surprised me.  He left nothing behind save for a few feathers.  I was concerned that the 'death scene' would freak out the other birds, but it was very clean.  a couple summers ago a coopers hawk killed a duck and made quite a mess of it, including leaving most of the duck. I disposed of the duck but there was blood on the ground, etc and it took many days before the ducks would congregate in that area, let alone use their path to come across the stream. The bigger hawks usually don't mess with the mallards.  I've seen the mallards splash at any hawk that would swoop over them as if to say oh go away you annoy us!

(ok it's safe to read now!)

While I was following the turtles around, one of the ducks visited. I think she was satisfied that I was sufficiently distracted!



Little Dude continues to visit the porch now, enjoying all the sunflower seeds.  I notice he seems to finally be filling out.
The photos are a little grainy since it was taken through the screens of the door and window.

He hears me
contemplating whether to stay or go!

I wish this would have turned out better...as he looked in the door.
I tried to upload a video of him but there was a problem...I'll have to give it a try later!

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