For the last month or so, we've been watching a Bunny Rabbit that lives under the deck in the front of the house. Every day, we throw a little corn and bird food out onto the sidewalk. We can sit in the living room and watch as the Squirrels and the Rabbit munch away.
This morning, Nancy threw out some food like any other day. A while later, I looked out and saw a lone Squirrel nibbling on some corn. I also saw something that just didn't look right. A pair of long legs sicking out from behind a hump of snow. Not Squirrel legs... Rabbit legs. I showed it to Nancy and she thought it looked odd too. We put on our boots and went out to take a look. I'll spare you the gory Rabbit pics, but something got it.
We noticed some interesting imprints in the snow.
I laid a 4' ruler next to the clearest set of prints. The bird must have had a 6' wingspan! There's some pretty clear feather markings of the left wing and the inner half of the right one. The Rabbit must have put up a struggle, because there's at least 3 sets of wing and body imprints in the snow. It would have had to have been a huge Owl or a Bald Eagle??
Here's one of the Bald Eagles. It's in a tree less than 1/4 mile from our house. They're a common sight around here. We've heard Owls in the woods at night, but we've never seen one.
Far to cold to live where you live. I like the warmer weather 10-30°C, not the freezing cold. Brrr feel chilly just reading you blog.
ReplyDeleteIt's only this cold 5 months out of the year.... The rest of the time it's just chilly!
DeleteI know....and it worried me in Door County and it worries me here. We have a lot of hawks around this area. Jasper may be too big for the effort, but my other cat could be an easy catch.I do worry about what's up...
ReplyDeleteIf I lived where you do, I would make a large sturdy tightly enclosed pen with a heavy wire top. There are a lot of examples online of how others in wooded areas have made their pens secure.
We've given some thought to adding a screened room onto the back of the house, on the existing patio. Add a bit of animal proof screening to keep the cats in, and some widow screen to keep the bugs out. I know the boys would probably stay outside all day in the summer time!
DeleteAn outdoor "pet enclosure" would be a good idea here too. A "catio".
I say Do it. You will be surprised how much pleasure it gives you to see how relaxed and deeply content your cats will be. Make sure you don't pave it! Let them have their yard and grass to roll on and chew on! And sunshine from above.
DeleteWill there be room for a small cot out there?? Sounds like a place I could live in Wisconsin during those other 7 chilly months.
DeleteThat would have worried me too. It's nature of course, but when pets are involved it is way different.
ReplyDeleteIn Calgary our apartment building was adjacent to the forest where the coyotes lived… We had a lot of pets go missing.
Poor bunny. Circle of life I am afraid. Good reason to keep the kitties inside.
ReplyDeleteIn December an owl carrying his furry dinner smacked his dinner into the passenger mirror of the Subaru as Brad was driving home. Broke the mirror and left fur on it. Not sure if he dropped his dinner or not.
Erik:
ReplyDeleteHere in the middle of the city, all we have to worry about are Wolves and Racoons. We have a large park about a block away with a family of wolves, and they have been into our back yard before. The racoons can be very dangerous and they used to raid our garbage cans, but now we don't leave them out until garbage collection day.
never thought to look up into the sky . . .
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
We have red tailed hawks here, they could pick up a small kitty but don't usually see really big meat eating birds (except for turkey vultures, and they like it dead already.) The snow has been so deep here I've thought about feeding the deer but I'd hate to part of them being distracted enough to be eaten by the coyotes.
ReplyDeleteTerrible, poor little bunny.
ReplyDeleteNINJA ZX-14 Motovlog