Fun With Nature

Every night when Zane and I go to bed we have our window wide open. I love the air and the smells from outside in our room when I go to sleep. We regularly hear coyotes in the foothills, which are really our extended back yard, so a lot of the time it gets loud. We can hear them yipping and calling to each other, and I assume they are hunting. It's kind of scary and exciting at the same time.

Last month my sisters and I were out in front of our house at dusk and a fox trotted by. He was larger than the average fox, and way less scrawny. He was kind of intimidating and reminded me of the several missing cat signs that have been posted around our neighborhood this summer.

Last week our friend who lives a couple of streets down went outside his house only to see a mountain lion cruising the neighborhood. I can't imagine how weird that would feel. (Dan, were you scared or exhilarated??) A mountain lion---I suppose the same wanderer---was spotted all over downtown over the next few days, and was finally shot and killed on the property of one of the hospitals here. (Now, wouldn't that be terrific irony---to leave the hospital, mended from whatever ailed you, and then be attacked by a cougar in the parking lot). I know I should be glad that he is no longer a threat to the general public, but I was saddened when I heard of his untimely death.

Yesterday we were in the front yard when we heard two birds birds (maybe Starlings?) freaking out. They were flying all over and were obviously pretty unhappy. We have had a red-tailed hawk hanging around this summer and he always causes a ruckus among the neighborhood common birds, so we thought maybe he was back. Pretty soon Zane spotted a hawk in the tree next to our driveway. It wasn't a Red-Tail, but definitely some kind of hawk. (Ryck and Andrea--any suggestions?) I searched the Fish and Game page and he looks like a lot of different hawks to my untrained eye. Anywho, the most interesting part was that he was tearing apart a smaller bird and eating dinner right in front of us. I hoped it wasn't a relative of one of the freaking out birds.

And last, but not least, (although invertebrates are so not cute and not nearly as interesting to me as mammals and birds of prey) is this little spider that Wilson and his friend spotted today. They saw the web, which was cleverly spanning my Sedum plants, which are just getting nice and pink, the way the bees like them. Pretty soon the boys noticed a bee struggling in the web and watched the spider dash out and wrap it up in it's thread. Very cool!

Wild Kingdom right here in our little neighborhood!