My day started out by rescuing a very large mole that was trying to break the world record on how long it could stay afloat in my pond. He was curled up in a ball and tucked very tightly into a corner. I thought at first I was looking a baby duck and wondering where the Mama was. I didn’t know what I had until I scooped him out. He was still alive just waterlogged. I set him free over the fence that backs onto woods, all the time hoping I wasn’t providing a quick brunch for the Barred owl that hangs around. (see previous post)
Then
I ran into a ribbon snake on the patio and had to stop and convince him to relocate – and wouldn’t he be happier by the small pond where he could hide in the rocks? It would be so much better than scaring guests on the patio. I was all ready to help with my broom and dust pan but he got the hint and high-tailed it to the pond.
The heat index had temperatures in the triple digits. I was done with gardening so I jumped in the pool to cool off. I’d been in the pool for a little over 5 minutes floating around on the raft when I opened my eyes and noticed a black vulture circling way up in the sky. I
closed my eyes for a few minutes more, opened them again and the vulture was now much closer and making a circle around my backyard. I wondered if the vulture thought I was dead. Here I am just floating motionless on the water. I closed my eyes again and opened them after a few minutes and – suprise – there he was in all his creepy splendor sitting on my back fence, watching me very intently. It was quite disconcerting so I got out of the pool to prove I’m alive and to shoo him away by waving a towel. First, they are big birds, really, really big birds and second they don’t shoo! He hopped off the fence and down into the neighbor’s yard. I could hear him hopping around in the leaves, up and down the fence line like he was looking for something. Later in the day, I was thinking about the vulture’s behavior and it occurred to me that I had put down some animal repellent along the back fence to ward off raccoons who think my ponds are their personal sushi bars. What’s the first ingredient in the animal repellent? Dried blood. Did the vulture smell the dried blood and come down to have look? Was he hopping around in the neighbor’s yard trying to uncover the dead thing he thought was buried in the leaves? I don’t know. I don’t have a clue about vulture etiquette so I’ll leave you with this excerpt from The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts and More Beasts for Worse Children by Hilaire Belloc; illustrated by Harold Berson; copyright 1966. (Do you think my parents were trying to tell me something when they gave me this book?)
Backyard Karma 