The Deer and Puma

At the moment five deer are pawing snow looking for acorns next to the house. Not far from the bird feeders. I can watch them from the kitchen window. They also enjoy browsing the herb garden, but that's under a snow drift.

Of course, there are no pumas in sight, but I know they're around too, as you'll soon see. 

Occasionally female pumas make forays into our community on "the ridge" in search of Mr Right. The caterwauling of a lovesick lady puma is a wonderful sound, but it rouses the dogs to bark up a storm, and it makes the neighbors a little testy. 

My advice to my neighbors is step out the back door and enjoy the dogs sounding off in sequence as Ms Lonely Heart moves away. Rest assured that an estrous pussy cat isn't interested in eating.      

 

Bully Skunk of the water hole

I can always count on a few clips of a local striped skunk at the water holes on the creek.

This man-skunk tanks up at the same place practically every night, which makes for rather boring viewing.

Let's face it, striped skunks have neither the flair of raccoons nor the charisma of bears.

But they are amusing when their noses get out of joint.

Confrontational Skunk

Not much happened on the trap line this past week, so I pulled a few cams and will find new sets soon. This skunk with attitude is the best I can offer. It's a full frame picture, and obviously it reacted to either a previous flash or perhaps the sound of the lens extending. I've seen this stand-off posture in other photos. This should suffice to warn any savvy predator about imminent danger. The next step is an about-face, at which point the stubborn predator is face-to-face with the weapon of musk destruction.