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Been out watching hedgehogs in my garden then had to listen to an hour long phone call from my needy friend. It's been an exhausting week, culminating in my working twelve hours yesterday and Tuesday. I am knackered, though enjoyed the hedgehogs - have a family of four zipping round the garden.
Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
Angharad
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I would love to watch hedge hogs.
In more than a dozen trips to Europe I've seen one hedge hog, and that was unfortunately a road kill. I would imagine in the US of A most of the observed armadillos, skunks, opossums, and coyotes seen by the American public are road kills.
Portia
Hedgehogs
I did not realize that we had armadillos in the Colonies... particularly the US. I have traveled with my family extensively throughout the states as a 'tent camper' and never saw one...
Boy the things you learn on the internet!
Zip
Little armored ones
Originally, nine-banded armadillos were found only in Texas in the US but with the decline in the population of predators with big teeth, the little guys have spread along the southern tier from New Mexico to Florida with some sightings as far north as Nebraska and Illinois. Big dogs usually are not hunters enough to deal with them, the red wolf is gone, cougars are scarce and large areas are free of alligators and crocodiles. Most foxes, coyotes, peccaries and bobcats don't have a big enough bite to threaten a large armadillo. Wild boar are even rarer than cougars.
The main killer of armadillos in the US is traffic since their startle reflex causes them to leap three feet or more into the air, claws ready. Bumpers are not frightened by the threat display.
Nine-banded armadillo litters are almost always identical quadruplets which makes them handy lab animals for some kinds of research, like into treatments for Hansen's disease (leprosy) which they can get, one of the few non-primate species that can.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Hedge hogs and armadillos
Hedge hogs are fairly common throughout Pennsylvania and upstate New York. They are extremely docile, almost tame, and it is not unusual to have them living in your yard if you are near a wooded area. Yes, if you travel through western Pennsylvania in the summer time, they represent a good portion of the speed bumps on the highway, probably about a 50/50 split with the deer.
I spent a large portion of my youth on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and Armadillos were very common there. They are primarily nocturnal, and as such you could see them quite a bit back then in the less developed areas if you were out at night. Of course, keep in mind that I am talking about the mid to late '60's. My father and I spent a good deal of time camping back then. He was trying to make me more of a man I suppose, and enrolled me in the Cub Scouts and the Y Indian Guides as those were the "manly" organizations. The only good thing about it was that I built a love of camping, although I had trouble understanding why I had to do it with the boys, when I wanted to be with the girls.
Any way, I can remember the rest of the boys playing soccer using an Armadillo as a soccer ball. They kept calling me a sissy as I was the best soccer player out of the group, yet I had no desire to torment that poor little creature by kicking it all around. I remember cheering when it finally got kicked close enough to the underbrush and it uncurled and ran off into the night. Everyone else was either mad or disappointed as they had lost their toy, but I remember how happy I was that the poor little thing had escaped.
If only I knew back then just what I know now, or if only my parents had been progressive enough to wonder why their son wanted to spend all of his time with his sister and her friends, maybe I could saved myself four decades of wasted lifetime.
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
In Texas
and actually did see a life armadillo once while hiking in a park. Unusual since they are not normally daytime creatures.
Skunks and opossums, oh, my!
Well, in my neck of the woods, both are right outside my door if I go outside at the right time of night, plus raccoons. Coyotes aren't common, although one can see them inland a bit, but deer wander around all the time. Eat the roses, they do. They quite like the rose hips, one imagines, an excellent source of vitamin C.
Armadillos, on the other hand, live quite a ways down south and east. I've seen them, but only on road trips. I had a friend who lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, part of the country we (collectively) swiped from both the Mexicans and the Indians through invasion and conquest. Shades of 1066!
It certainly adds a little bit of irony, though, to current rhetoric around "safe borders" and "illegal" immigrants, since not one of the current proponents appears to want those "safe borders" to be retroactive.
As a side note, no one kills a skunk with an automobile twice if they can possibly help it. I once saw an idiot deliberately swerve to hit a skunk, one supposes as a malicious amusement. Well, a fool and his auto are soon parted, at least when they hit a skunk, since he pulled over at the next wide spot on the road and he and his entire family fled from the vehicle almost as quickly as if it had been on fire.
I didn't stick around to see how long it took them to return, but did notice that the putative wife of the idiot was yelling at him in pure fury as we passed them by. The kids were merely miserable and retching.
One lives and learns, one hopes, but some actions are just too mean and stupid to allow one much optimism at all.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Angharad, just wondering
if the hedgehogs come up in a Bike chappter?
May Your Light Forever Shine
Ok, now I'm imagining
Angharad and Bonzi sitting on the back porch sipping wine while watching hedgehogs dancing in the garden. (not sure if they have little tutus)
Ground Squirrels
I've been working up at a theatre here in town taking down a set for "Fame" and putting up one for "Little Shop of Horrors" and out the front of the Theater is a field FULL of ground squirrels. Cute, mischievous, and utterly deadly to landscaping. I don't think I'm that mean wishing the hawks and falcons would drop from the skies and carry them off. Circle of life and all that. The only living things left in the planter next to the field is trees and the most ugly low shrubbery. All the bulbs, flowers, color (low flowers), and grass are gone. Now if we could get some nice dormeeses to eat the pine and oak nuts.
Robi
*HUGS*
Robi
So pleased you've got hedge-hogs Ang.
We used to have lots in our garden but they've seemingly disappeared (or at least I haven't found any for the past two years.) Apparently they are getting scarce in UK. You've got me interested again so I'll be out with the torch tonight. Got the two nieces (9 and 6) coming to stay over tonight so a hedge-hog hunting expedition might be an exciting foray into the wilderness at the top end of our garden.
I leave the old cat food out each night, (the stuff she leaves in her bowl,) and by morning it's invariably gone but that could be any one of several different 'critters'; foxes, badgers, cats, stoats, hedgehogs, dogs - you name it, we've seen em' all including red deer and fallow deer, (they raid the bins believe it or not for bread and such like).
Look after yourself Ang and take a break from Bike when you need it (but I don't really need to tell you that.)
X
Bevs.
Coincidence
I saw a hedgehog Wednesday afternoon at about half past two (pm)!
I was just relaxing after a late lunch and caught movement through our patio doors out the corner of my eye. A hedgehog walking across the patio!
We watched it roam all round our garden before it disappeared behind our shed. It didn't seem too bothered about the daylight or being seen, it just snuffled about over our unkempt lawn looking for juicy tidbits. What made it appear I have no idea, although there were men erecting scaffolding three doors up, perhaps it was disturbed.
Penny