A guy is driving through Chileno Valley when he sees a sign in front of a ranch house: “Talking Dog For Sale.” He rings the bell. The owner answers and tells him the dog is in the backyard.
The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there. “You talk?” he asks. “Yep,” the Lab replies. After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says “So, what’s your story?”
The Lab looks up and says, “Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA. In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country. I was able to sit among spies and world leaders because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.
“I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running. But jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger, so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.
“I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I’m just retired.”
The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog. “Ten dollars,” the rancher says. “Ten dollars!” the guy exclaims. “This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?”
“Because he’s a liar,” the rancher replies. “He never did any of that crap.”
More canine lore. Even after the brick Grandi Building in Point Reyes Station was reinforced a few decades ago by putting a steel frame inside the building, some concern remained that bricks would pop out of the wall during a major earthquake. That resulted in a warning being painted on the building, but within weeks, pranksters changed “PARKING” to “BARKING.” Nowadays motorists routinely ignore it. This year, the vacant building will turn 100.
Earthquakes are not the only threats to bricks in Point Reyes Station. Here a Western gray squirrel gnaws on a brick outside of Mitchell cabin. Why? “Because they have rootless teeth that keep growing, they must gnaw continuously to wear them down,” explains the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies. “Otherwise they would be unable to close their mouths and their teeth would continue to grow and eventually prevent them from feeding.” Photo by Lynn Axelrod
Lynn and I were enjoying a couple of mocha coffees at Toby’s Coffee Bar Sunday, as we often do, when she noticed this sign on the front of the building. I had no idea what “orse” means, so I looked it up. Turns out its most common meaning in British English is “not comparable.” In short, there’s no stable that can compare with Five Brooks.
Further down the main street I spotted this small sticker on a steel beam that’s part of the Palace Market’s external frame. Chu is a Chinese surname, but that doesn’t explain the sign. I was laughing at it when a woman walked past, read the sign, and with a laugh remarked, “Well, it’s not me.”
A hummingbird flew into Toby’s Feed Barn Sunday and apparently lost its way among the skylights high overhead. There would be no practical way to get to it or catch it, so I’m just hoping it finds its way out soon.
More avian mishaps. Two red-winged blackbirds with injured legs have begun showing up at Mitchell cabin. Neither Lynn nor I could figure out what happened to them, so Lynn asked Dave DeSante, president of the Institute for Bird Populations in Point Reyes Station. His only guess was that they’d gotten their legs tangled in something unknown. So far, at least, they’re surviving. Photo by Lynn Axelrod
A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and gently tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb and stopped just inches from a large, plate-glass window.
For a few moments everything was silent in the cab. Then, the shaking driver asked, “Are you OK? I’m so sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me.” The badly shaken passenger apologized to the driver and said, “I didn’t realize that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle someone so badly.”
The driver replied, “No, no, I’m the one who is sorry. It’s entirely my fault.
Today is my very first day driving a cab. I’ve been driving a hearse for 25 years.”
Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife Comments Off on A gallery of the critters around Mitchell cabin
Around the first of the year I sometimes post a roundup of the creatures that have shown up around Mitchell cabin.
This year I’m doing it again, starting with a butterfly and dragonfly followed by a variety of larger critters.
This exhibit ends with a coyote, a bobcat, two badgers, and two deer rubbing noses.
Regular readers of this blog will recognize some of these photos from past postings.
Here a buckeye butterfly rests on a chrysanthemum that’s growing in a flowerpot on the deck. ___________________________________________________________________
A dragonfly pauses on the twig of a tree that’s next to the deck. Dragonflies can easily be distinguished from damselflies because when they are at rest they leave their wings extended while damselflies close their wings over their bodies when at rest. __________________________________________________________________
A Pacific tree frog on a bamboo shoot near our hot tub.
Some people call them Pacific chorus frogs. During the winter, their main mating season, males make their way to water and then charm females to the water with a chorus of chirping.
Gopher snakes are not poisonous, but they mimic rattlesnakes, coiling up and wagging their tongues when threatened. This one was near the foot of our driveway.
A jackrabbit in the field outside our kitchen window pauses to look around .
This is the only chipmunk I’ve ever seen around Mitchell cabin. I’m just glad I had my camera nearby when it showed up.
A Western gray squirrel basks in the sun after taking a drink from our birdbath.
A roof rat takes a drink from the birdbath. These rats originated in southern Asia, and you’ll recall it was their fleas that spread the Black Death throughout Europe in the 14th Century, killing roughly half the people.
This cute possum used to be a regular nighttime visitor, but so many raccoons have been hanging around the cabin in the evening that we seldom see any possums these days.
Three raccoons in a tree beside Mitchell cabin. ______________________________________________________________
“Thinking is more interesting than knowing but less interesting than looking.” Goethe
While in the Seahaven neighborhood of Inverness a week ago, Lynn and I happened to park under one of the everyday world’s oddities. I was once again intrigued by the sawed-off section of a tree limb that years ago had grown around the guy wire to a utility pole.
A closeup reveals how thoroughly the cable became embedded in what remains of a long-gone branch of a long-gone tree.
Nor is there only one overhead reminder of arboreal history. Further down Drake Way on the other side of the utility pole, another limb had grown around a pole-to-pole cable. The tree may be gone, but this relic of a limb remains.
A log in a tree? Now that’s a real widow-maker, I said to myself last week when I spotted it teetering 10 feet off the ground in a crotch of a pine tree. The pine grows at the entrance to neighbors Skip and Renée Shannon’s driveway.
However, when I walked around the tree to get a better look, the optical illusion became apparent.
A Western gray squirrel soaks up the morning sun beside my birdbath. I see squirrels around Mitchell cabin fairly often, but it’s hard to photograph one. The moment they’re aware I’m around, they dart out of sight. Last week I got lucky. The squirrel didn’t see me.
There’s always evidence that squirrels are around. They leave the ground underneath my pine trees littered with well-gnawed pine cones and the green tips of limbs. Squirrels like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark. The bark that’s softest and easiest to gnaw through is at the narrow ends of growing limbs, resulting in squirrels forever gnawing off the ends.
“Well, we brought reinforcements too, so you can warn your king we’re going to keep advancing a pace at a time and over two until none of his knights is left standing.” (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)
California quail
A mother quail marched across the yard a week ago as a dozen chicks ran to keep up. Males and females both have crests. The males’ is black, the females’ brown. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)
When a noise in the bushes caused momma to suddenly stop, the nervous chicks collided in a quailing pileup. But there was no danger, and soon all of them were off and running again. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)
A purposeful doe and her small fawn hurry past the bedroom window.
“We live in an old chaos of the sun,/ Or old dependency of day and night,/ Or island solitude, unsponsored, free/ Of that wide water, inescapable./ Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail/ Whistle about us their spontaneous cries.” Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning
Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife Comments Off on Wildlife relish outdoor dining at Mitchell cabin
Consider this a dining review for the benefit of wildlife in Point Reyes Station.
The Pine Cone Diner.
A Western gray squirrel carries a pine cone in its teeth as it jumps from limb to limb in a Monterey pine next to Mitchell cabin. West Marin’s squirrels are easy to spot but hard to photograph. In the time it takes to raise a camera to my eye, they often bound away to a new location.
Squirrels gnaw off the scales of pine cones while the cones are still green in order to eat the pine seeds underneath.
Sometime ago it became obvious from the small, well-gnawed pine cones we were finding on the walk and decks at Mitchell cabin that once again a squirrel is a habitué of one tree in particular. It’s fun to have the squirrel around, but having the remains of cones and seeds continually under foot is a nuisance.
Also found below pines at the cabin are limb tips a squirrel has gnawed off. Squirrels like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark. The bark that’s softest and easiest to gnaw through is at the narrow ends of growing limbs, resulting in squirrels forever gnawing off the ends.
Were this the Yuletide, a few of the tips that fell in the past two weeks would have been big enough to serve as small Christmas trees. One was more than four feet long.
A ruby-throated hummingbird approaches a favorite flower on the deck. In normal flight, a hummingbird’s wings beat around 80 times per second, but in dives performed during courtship, they may reach 200 flaps per second.
The same hummingbird sucks nectar from a blossom.
Hummingbirds are able to hover in one place by flapping their wings in a horizontal figure 8.
A tri-colored blackbird swoops in for a landing, pushing aside other blackbirds, which are pecking birdseed off the deck railing. The tri-colored blackbird’s yellow patch on its wing distinguishes it from a red-winged blackbird.
The flash from the camera is reflected in the fox’s eyes, but the vixen appears oblivious to the burst of light. Photo by Lynn Axelrod
A gray fox heads toward the kitchen door at Mitchell cabin after dark, hoping to be handed a slice of bread. A couple of days later, Lynn saw the vixen jump onto a deck chair and then onto the railing where a mourning dove was sitting, but the bird took flight just in time to escape.
Raccoons likewise fail to react to the camera’s flashes. They too are far more interested in bread. Photo by Lynn Axelrod
An earlier posting describing how animals’ eyes react to light notes, among other things, that wildlife including birds do not usually show any reaction to sporadic flashes, even those directly in their faces,but a quick succession of flashes gets their attention.
A black tailed buck shows the grace of a dancer as he looks up from grazing next to Mitchell cabin.
This deer seems to have marked off my fields as his, for no other bucks have been coming around recently although a fawn and a couple of does are frequent visitors.
If you happen to be a squirrel, hummingbird, blackbird, fox, raccoon, or deer, Mitchell cabin offers great food at no charge. But look out for the fox if you’re smaller than she is.
From a butterfly to a pair of badgers, from a newt and a salamander to a bobcat and a coyote, this posting is a collection of some of my favorites from among the photos I’ve taken of wildlife around Mitchell cabin.
A Buckeye butterfly atop a chrysanthemum on my deck.
Closeup of an amphibian, an arboreal salamander.
Lying low, another amphibian.
A Pacific tree frog’s color depends on where it is at the moment. Unlike chameleons, whose colors change to match background colors, tree frogs’ colors change (between brown and green) depending on how dry or moist their surroundings are.
A poisonous amphibian.
The skin of a California newt such as this secretes a neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin, that is hundreds of times more toxic than cyanide.
A macho reptile.
Male Western fence lizards do pushups to intimidate other males. In the process they reveal their blue undersides, which is why they’re sometimes called Blue-bellies.
A colorful but seldom seen reptile.
I found this Pacific ring-necked snake in a rotten log while splitting firewood. The snake eats very small creatures, tadpoles, insects, and especially salamanders. It has just enough venom to immobilize them but is not dangerous to humans.
A beady-eyed garter snake warms itself in the sun on my driveway.
Garter snakes are the most-common genus of reptile in North America. Although they are venomous, their venom is too mild to harm humans. However, when they’re disturbed, garter snakes emit a foul-smelling secretion from a gland near their anus.
Common garter snakes come in innumerable variations and are found in fields, forests and wetlands nationwide. Like this snake, adults average about four feet in length. In West Marin, their diet typically consists of tadpoles, slugs, and earthworms. But unlike other snakes, they don’t eat insects. When first born, the snakes are prey for bullfrogs. Hawks and foxes eat adults.
Gopher snakes are non-venomous although they don’t want you to know it.
“When disturbed, the gopher snake will rise to a striking position, flatten its head into a triangular shape, hiss loudly and shake its tail at the intruder,” the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum website notes. “These defensive behaviors, along with its body markings, frequently cause the gopher snake to be mistaken for a rattlesnake.”
Golden-crowned sparrow disguised as a stained-glass window.
Heading for a drink at the birdbath on Mitchell cabin’s deck, a crow hops over a second crow, which stays put at their birdseed buffet.
A great blue heron hunting gophers in my field.
Chipmunks visit Mitchell cabin only occasionally, so I felt lucky to snap this photo of one.
A Western gray squirrel as seen from my bedroom window.
Every morning the ground around Mitchell cabin is littered with the freshly cut tips of pine branches because of this squirrel and his clan. Squirrels like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark, and in the process they gnaw off twigs.
Trying not to be noticed.
West Marin’s large jackrabbits, which some people call black-tailed hares, are often seen in the late afternoon and evening around Mitchell cabin. To avoid catching the eye of predators, jackrabbits typically sit motionless unless the danger comes too close. Then they suddenly spring away, making sharp, evasive turns as they flee.
A gray fox on Mitchell cabin’s deck.
Young raccoons retreat to a tree when they feel threatened by other animals.
A blacktail doe nurses one of her two fawns.
Relying on its spots for camouflage, a newly born fawn tries to be invisible in tall grass by lying absolutely motionless even though I was leaning over it to take a photo.
A buck and two fawns bounding across tractor-mowed grass.
A mother badger and her cub sun themselves on the mound of dirt around their burrow (known as a “sett”).
A bobcat hunting outside my kitchen window.
A coyote heads for cover in, appropriately enough, a patch of coyote brush.
Besides photographing the wildlife around Mitchell cabin, I also enjoy having a bit of fun with it. My posting about encouraging a bodhisattva possum on her path to spiritual enlightenment has proven to be one of the best-read I’ve ever put online.
I take each species’ disposition into account when determining what it is best suited to learn. Raccoons, as you might guess, are natural bartenders.
The biggest challenge I’ve faced in training wildlife has been convincing different species to get along with each other.
I felt a bit like a miracle worker when I finally got a possum, a fox, and a raccoon, none of which traditionally like each other, to dine nose to nose just outside my kitchen door.
I did it by setting out well-separated handfuls of peanuts for them and over time moving the handfuls closer and closer together. Now why can’t diplomats do that in the Middle East?
