I feel awkward posting animal pics here at a rate rather higher than anyone else, but I feel awkward anyway. I’ll just deal. I went looking for juvenile yellow-crowned night herons, since I’d spotted some yesterday. Didn’t find them, but I found and struggled to get a shot of a scissor-tailed flycatcher. Nothing great, but they’re so cool - look at that tail!
We’ve been thinking about acquiring a hedgehog, but are worried that it will involve a lot more care and expense than most pets. Also, getting conflicting information about cats and hedgehogs living together, mass hysteria, and all that.
Aw! Years ago my family had a little calico with similar coloring (at least I think so, based on the small portion of that cat that I can actually see ).
She followed my roommate home in the dead of winter one day. She ignored her, because she figured that the cat was just being friendly, but the next day she was right where she left her. We took her to the shelter, but she wasn’t microchipped and we couldn’t find the owner. No collar, either. Definitely had owners though. She was already spayed.
There’s not that high of a load for care - PP eats about about a tablespoon of cat food a day, we swap her water frequently, and she does need some time to explore/sniff around. The only thing is the cage cleaning - we have a set of fleece liners and swap them out every day or two then wash them at the end of the week. Some eat bugs, but not ours, so the food costs are low - she couldn’t eat a small bag of cat food in a year, though we swap them out when they seem old. The vet visits can be expensive but she doesn’t go very often (thankfully), we just do an annual checkup. Still it’s good to research. Not sure about cats, she was always fine with the dog, though he was old. I made a write-up on keeping hedgehogs as pets here:
A doe came for a visit over the weekend. You can barely see the barbed wire fence behind her, but it’s 4 feet tall. We speculate that she was born early this spring, but we don’t always know what we are talking about.
She’s lovely. Usually nice to see deer. When I was out looking at the scissor-tailed flycatcher & friends a couple days ago, I was trying to be sneaky and go through a bit with a lot of foliage for cover to keep the bird from spotting me as quickly and taking off since it had finally left the wire and was on a branch. As I got close to the clearing’s edge I spooked a white-tailed deer hiding in the shrubs that I hadn’t seen. It made that loud snort/grunt noise startled deer make before bolting. It scared the hell out of me - their snort/grunt noise is loud. Also the flycatcher left.
I love seeing the deer when they’re wading in the creeks around here. This doe had a fawn with her, though it was hiding in the bushes.
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