Overrun with roadrunners

This roadrunner is looking at the cats through the big windows in the back

This sure has been the case over the last month.  We’ve had five of them hunting aggressively in our yard and surrounding desert.  Most of the lizards are gone.  I imagine they probably became lunch, or dinner, for these hungry guys.

Roadrunner taking a rest on the wall

At first we were very surprised to see so many at one time because a pair is the most we’ve seen at once since we’ve lived here.  Then we began to think it was the parents showing their “kids” how to hunt. 

If you remember last year I wrote a post about a roadrunner nest in a tree on the vacant lot next door.  I think the little rascals have probably built another nest over there this year and that’s why we have so many roaming about. 

The young ones aren’t really afraid of us and jump into the tree next door quite a bit.  I haven’t had time to go out there and look around for a nest, but I bet I’d find one.  This particular tree is just like the one the roadrunners nested in last year, but it’s quite bushy and thick and hangs over our wall a bit.

Here's the lizard in the fireplace

As I mentioned, we had a lizard living in the fireplace a few years ago and another one had moved in and was entertaining the cats.  It’s since disappeared.  I suspect it’s become roadrunner food.  It’s been missing about two weeks now.  The cats still look for it in the fireplace, as do we.  I like the lizards because they eat all the bugs.  And yes, we have bugs in the desert.  There are many things that survive here, which seems incredible to me.  I know it must be a hard life, but I’m sure they don’t know any different being born here.  The same situation we all had as kids, not realizing what humidity was because it was just hot in the summers.

A roadrunner proud of his catch

These roadrunners have stopped traffic once on our street that I know of.  One had caught a chipmunk and the others gave chase hoping to get some of it, I guess.  They were actually running down the road.  Traffic going by had to stop in awe.  I was off work that day and looked out just in time to see this spectacle.  I wish I had had the time to grab the camera and take a quick video.  But roadrunners run fast and they all soon disappeared onto the vacant lot next door.  I lost sight of them in the scrub brush.

Signs you’ve been living in the desert too long

When you start to worry about the critters who call this place home. 

 Roadrunner at the birdbath

Roadrunner waiting for a lizard who lives behind the shed

 

I’m very guilty here because I’m keeping a constant check on the roadrunner nest in the vacant lot next door.  The parents come to hunt and get water at our house.  When I went to check the nest tonight, there was no one there.  I’m very worried about the chicks.  I don’t know if they’ve hatched and both parents are out hunting for food, or what’s going on.  I have no idea why I’m worried about these critters as they hunt all the other critters in the yard and have been existing this way long before we came to live here and will still be doing this long after we’re gone.  We actually cut a small slice off a steak we barbecued last night for the roadrunner.  He wasn’t having any luck so we thought we’d help out.  Of course he wouldn’t touch it, so maybe they prefer to hunt their food alive, or at least aren’t hungry enough to eat that.  I’ll have to Google it and see.

 Roadrunner nest

 

When I was over at the nest twice tonight I didn’t hear a peep from any baby birds.  I don’t know if they’ve hatched, or if the parents feel it’s safe to leave the eggs alone for a short time.  I was scolding them under my breath.  It was beginning to rain and I figured the babies would be alarmed, but I imagine birth into the desert would be trial by fire.  Better to get used to it now, I suppose.  Life isn’t very kind here, especially for the animals that have to endure the elements.  I would truly miss all the critters we get to see here.

I also don’t mind sitting in my car at 100 degrees for about ten minutes before I turn the A/C on. 

I know that’s crazy!  I must be acclimated to the heat because sometimes it feels so good to me.  That is unless I’m dressed in my penguin suit for work when I can sweat buckets because of the collar and sleeves required for the job.  That’s probably the number one thing about working as a demo person that I don’t like.  That and having to “lose” the jewelry for work.  And of course, there’s no flip flops for work, so I have a constant athlete’s foot problem going on.

I look forward to the hundred degree days instead of the 30 degree ones. 

I hate to admit it, but this is so true for me.  I could almost cry when we hit October because I know by Halloween it’ll be cold for several months.  I really can’t stand the cold as much as 115 degrees bothers me.

I’m used to seeing rocks and dirt everywhere I go.

One of the many rocky mountains we have here.

 

Yes, you can get used to this.  Grass or anything else green is rare here, except for trees and there aren’t a lot of those.  I can find so much beauty in the carved rocks and mountains around me.  They’re stripped bare of any vegetation, so you can see the whole surface sculpted by nature.  There’s something magical about that.

The hot desert wind doesn’t bother me

In fact, I can find any kind of breeze refreshing even if it’s a hundred degrees outside.  It’s just so nice to have a stir of a wind once in a while to cool down the 115 we endure here in the summer.  It reminds me of the Santa Ana winds we had in CA, but they always were around in September and October and, of course, we never hit 115 there either.

Very high electric bills

Oh my!  Now this is hard to get used to, but it’s a part of living in the desert.  I can just figure one paycheck a month goes to pay the A/C bill.  And we don’t keep our house cool.  Most people come in here and remark on how hot it is.  Thank goodness for fans or we’d never make it.  Sleeping is the biggest issue.  You can always go naked around the house, if you have to, although tank tops and shorts usually work out fine even if you’re still sweating.  My office is the situation because it’s upstairs so it’s normal to be at least 95 up there in the summer months.  That’s hard to do if I sweated at work all day.   Sometimes I do turn the A/C on up there a couple of hours to take the extreme heat off.

So there you have it.  A brief synopsis of desert living.  Will I live here forever – no.  But I have no plans to move in the near future.  Slowly, we’re getting there though.

 A young chipmunk learns early how to find water

 

Be thankful for what you have because, as bad as it may be, it’s still doable and probably not all that awful when you think about it. 

I did it

This is totally off the beaten path, but it’s nice to change it up once in a while and give you some desert news, other than we’re burning up from the heat here.  LOL.  I’m talking seriously hot here.  It’s been at least 110 every day for the last two weeks.  Somedays it was higher than that and we did hit 116 one day.  Everything is suffering from the heat.  We’ll see if any of the landscaping survives this summer.

Over the last few weeks I’ve watched a pair of roadrunners collecting dead lawn pieces and twigs in our yard.  I knew they were building a nest.  So I kept my eye on them and eventually had a clue that the nest was on the vacant lot next door.  There are some very big tamarisk trees over there. 

I googled roadrunners to find out about their nesting habits.  I’d totally be having withdrawals if google didn’t exist. 

He's proud of his hunting skills

Late this afternoon, the male was over in the yard hunting and drinking water.  He caught a lizard and went straight to the vacant lot, so I decided to go and investigate.  I’ve wanted to do that anyway, but it’s been so blasted hot that it’s like stepping into a furnace to go outdoors.  Today we had lots of clouds, so it only got to 105.  I decided to brave it.

Well I found the nest right away about eight or nine feet up in one of the tamarisk trees.  I took about a dozen pics but it’s so brushy in there that I could only get so close.  I wish I had a ladder and could get in there to see the inside of the nest, but one of the roadrunners was sitting in there.  It’s so brushy I don’t think I could even get a ladder through all the stuff anyway.  And I would hate to scare the parents off, although roadrunners don’t seem to be afraid of much.  However, nesting birds might be different.

 Probably hard to make out, but the bird is there on the nest

 

This isn’t a very good pic but if you look closely you’ll be able to see the head and beak of one of the parents in the nest.  I did what I could with my small camera.

If I have it figured right, the young chicks should hatch between July 4 and the 15^th.  But I read they only stay with the parents for two weeks and then disperse into the desert on their own.  They must grow up quickly.  And I bet you didn’t know that the parents will actually eat the runts of the newly hatched birds.  Roadrunners are brutal birds.  Perhaps calling the young ones chicks is too nice a name for them.

The Moose Experience

I’d never seen a moose in person before I lived in Alaska.  Nothing could probably have ever prepared me for the adventures that were to come associated with my living in the last frontier.

It would get so cold in the winter months that the moose would venture out of the mountains and come to town in search of food and places to stay until spring came.  One such moose took up residence in the backyard for a while one year.  I wish I had taken pictures of it, but I wasn’t as good about taking pics in those days as I am now.  This was a wonder to see and I kick myself today, but I can’t go back to those days, not that I would ever want to.  I don’t know how I withstood that brutal cold.

The moose would wander around Anchorage and the other smaller towns, much as they did on the TV show, Northern Exposure, a few decades ago, if any of you ever watched that.  There are quirky people living in Alaska too, just as on that TV show.  You can drive five minutes out of town and be in complete untouched wilderness.  I think the isolation does something to your head.

 Moose pictures by Ron Niebrugge

http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Biography.htm

 
I was friends with some people who lived in the country (outside Anchorage) and they invited me over to help with a project one weekend.  I didn’t know what I was in for until I arrived, or perhaps I wouldn’t have gone at all.  When I walked into their small house, the entire living area (kitchen and living room) had been transformed into a butcher shop.  I think my mouth probably fell open with shock.

The guys were all hunters and had lived in Alaska for a number of years.  Every year they’d go on a moose hunt, kill their quantity, and pack them out of the forest.  This particular guy and his girlfriend had a small building built for curing meat.  Once arriving home, they would cut the moose up in large pieces and leave to hang in the curing shed at just above 32°F for three weeks.  This all happened before the butchering party.  Sometimes other friends would use this curing shed for their kills also.

I never saw so much raw meat and blood in my life and I never expected to become a moose butcher, not in any wildest stretch of the imagination.  This wasn’t a scene for the squeamish.  I had no experience with that and didn’t care to have any.  Nevertheless, I spent all night in that house working with the other girls at a long piece of plywood held up by sawhorses that served as a table.  The owners had several makeshift tables like this scattered around the house.  The plywood lay covered in paper with huge hunks of meat lying at one end.

In another area there was a roll of white butcher paper and someone was there wrapping up the cut meat into individual portions.  They labeled the packages and put them into a cooler.  Everyone had on crude aprons and worked quickly with big knives.

I thought we’d never reach the end of the moose meat, but we did just before daybreak.  For helping with the task, I got a few packages of meat like everyone else there.  The rest went into the freezer of the owners, or hauled home by the friends whose meat we also cut up.

Now I’m not a huntress and would probably never shoot anything myself but would opt for veggies instead.  But let’s face it, this moose was already dead, so I’m glad it didn’t go to waste at least.  After a while, I tried the meat they gave me and it was very good, moist and more tender than beef.  I haven’t had moose since.

A Must Read for Cat Owners

Gareth Morgan from stuff.co.nz article

Okay, this makes me crazy – reading this kind of stuff. There are nuts everywhere you turn these days. This came to my attention and I simply had to share. I think all you cat lovers will find this interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a place on this man’s website/blog to comment, or I would have left him an earful.


This is a bit of a follow-up on my last post, I suppose, since it was about cats hunting birds in my neighborhood. As I stated I do wish the owners would keep them indoors because they have an internal instinct to hunt. However, along with this, keeping them indoors is also for their own safety. But under no circumstances should anyone call for the eradication of cats. To entertain such a thought is total madness.

In my opinion, Gareth Morgan is taking things too far. He is not even opposed to euthanizing your cat to get rid of it. Of course, he is also suggesting that owners not replace their cats once they die, etc. I can’t believe he really thinks he will eradicate all cats off the country of New Zealand. Obviously, he is delusional. I would think bigger birds and other animals prey on the eggs of smaller birds, etc. and are just as much to blame for a waning bird population. After all nature has way of keeping everything in check.

Anyway, I’ll let you read the articles here if you’re interested.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/22/new-zealand-environmental-advocate-launches-campaign-to-ban-cats-as-pets/

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/8208722/Disappearing-like-a-Cheshire-grin

http://garethsworld.com/catstogo/

Video:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/gareth-morgan-s-anti-cat-campaign-goes-global-5324346?vid=5324031

Neighbors

Sunni's Photo's

At my age, I have to admit that there isn’t a lot to surprise me, but I was a bit stunned about a conversation that my husband had with the neighbor two doors down.  This neighbor has a cat that roamed outside in his old neighborhood, so of course things haven’t changed here.

We love cats and other animals as well.  We also feed a lot of birds, quail, pigeons, doves, chipmunks, etc. around here.  They have a real haven in our backyard.  Our cats are indoor cats and always have been.  I have never understood people who can let their cats run lose especially with a busy street so close by.

Since moving in, the neighbor has acquired two more cats.  After some complaints of his cat hunting in people’s yards, he did install an underground fence last fall.  The cat is over here daily filling up on birds, or whatever it can catch, which makes my husband quite disgusted.  Even with the underground fence, this cat still gets out.

About a week or so ago my husband got a picture of the cat in the act and marched down to confront the neighbor about this again.  Usually the guy never opens the door, but this time he did.  My husband told me the story after he returned.  It isn’t as if we would miss a bird or two because we must have at least a hundred over here at any given time.  However, it is the principle, I guess, even though the cat is only using his inbred instincts.

Sunni's Photo's 

Anyway, after denying he even had a cat, the neighbor had to fess up after my husband showed him the cat’s mug shot on his camera.  The guy said he won’t stay in the $2,000 fence he had installed and he didn’t know what to do about it.  He suggested my husband shoot the cat.  Can you believe that?  Of course, there is no way we would shoot a cat.  My husband told him to take care of it by keeping it inside or taking it to the pound.  We have a “no kill” animal shelter here.

Well, after this incident, we didn’t see the cat for over a week.  I suspected the worst, thinking perhaps that the guy shot the cat himself.  I felt relief when I saw it hunting in the yard again yesterday.

Sunni's Photo's 

My husband said the guy would never shoot the cat.  He was only trying to get some reaction by saying that.  Why do people do that?  I guess I tend to be blunt and just come out with it, not say something to see what kind of reaction I’ll get.  The world is full of all kinds of people though.  This guy and his wife are not very friendly with anyone.

Meanwhile, the hunt goes on for a place to move.  This move has nothing to do with this neighbor, although most of the people in this state are not very welcoming.  I love the scenery and my house and even the cost of living when you are retired and have to consider that, but the weather is a BIG drawback.  Nine years is long enough to put up with that.