The bears are awake, according to the paper, but no, I haven’t seen any.
The last bear on these premises was the one who decided to try to climb the plum tree out front a few years ago and broke it down to the ground. I didn’t see that one, either, but nothing else could have broken the tree in half like that. I ended up duct-taping and roping the split halves together, and after a couple of seasons, it had knit itself back into a single trunk and could stand on its own. Looking at it now, you’d never guess what had happened.
But the critters are stirring again. I saw a rattlesnake at Tsankawi, and yesterday while on a walk, I saw a skink! (Not for very long, maybe 1/10 of a second, but that’s the way it is with skinks.) “What’s a skink?” my wife asked when I told her. I wonder how many of us have ever seen a skink. I wonder if anyone cares that so many of the animals of my long-ago childhood exist as ghosts or memories these days.
One I thought had gone forever is the horned toad. Growing up in West Texas, I saw bazillions of them, but not long ago it seemed that most had disappeared from the Lone Star State. [Read "Johnny & the Horned Toads" here.] Evidently people got too good at killing ants, the horned toad’s favorite meal. With ants being what you might call New Mexico’s unofficial state insect–they tell me the real one is the tarantula hawk wasp, but don’t believe them!–we have plenty of horned toad rations here. Just check out this video from last July!
About a minute after I saw that skink yesterday, I also found a very young horned toad up on the mesa. It couldn’t have been more than two and a half inches long, if that. What a beautiful creature, with the sun glinting off its spiny skin! It turned its head slightly to keep a beady red eye on me as I walked away. Did you know the young ones can change the color and pattern of their skin almost instantly? I’ve seen them do that right in front of me. It’s the most astonishing thing to witness.
It’s not just the reptiles, though. Bird activity is picking up as well. So far this year we’ve seen at least three kinds of woodpeckers, ravens, vultures, robins, Western bluebirds, starlings, scrub jays, Stellar’s jays, juncos, sparrows, house finches, grosbeaks, magpies, towhees, nuthatches, several kinds of hawks, at least one unclassifiable warbler, and broad-tailed hummingbirds. Next in line will be the Western Tanagers and Bullock’s orioles.
Oh yes, the rabbits. Can’t forget the jacks. And back in March there was a raccoon on the bird feeder at 2:00 a.m.! I’ve seen elk poop on the mesa, too.
So far there’s been no baby scorpion sighting in the kitchen, like I had one year, and the mice in the bathroom ceiling have been quiet lately. The latter have probably moved outside, where they or chipmunks have been stashing sunflower seeds and last year’s apricot pits in various cubbies under the hood of my ’87 Ford truck. Just so long as they don’t chew the wiring, I don’t mind too much.
Better there than in the house!
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I remember seeing skinks and horned toads alot when I was a kid and that was in southeast Kansas! Haven’t seen one in a very long time,although that might change in couple of weeks. ha!
Baby scorpions? ughhh what am I getting myself into…:)
The ones I saw were on the kitchen counter, if you can believe that!
I think I saw in a movie to use lavender – just lay some lavender stems on your window sill and it keeps out scorpions. Maybe it was just a Hollywood concoction. Worth googling, though, if you wanted to.
We have plenty of skinks in Australia, most of them in my back yard
http://www.waratahsoftware.com.au/wp_lizards_skinks.html
Occasionally we see a blue-tongued lizard too.
Geez, how can I compete against Queensland?
I have GOT to come down there, I swear. It’s a holy mission.