Urban Carnivores - What's In Your 'Hood?

The other day Chris and I were doing yard work and looked up to see a coyote trotting down the middle of the street. This was at 11am and in broad daylight.

It disappeared into my neighbor's massively overgrown lot after giving us the stare down.

But our coyote sighting pales in comparison to what showed up in my parent's neighbor's yard this morning:

RIVER OTTERS!! Four, including two babies!  [Can you feel my excitement?!.]

Growing up I had a whole school of fancy koi (fish) that lived in our pond. Some of them were 15+ years old, had names, and I trained them to come up to the surface by ringing a little bell. (I was a bored teenager, clearly). One day, all my prized fish were gone, with only a few fish heads laying scattered on the rocks. Piscinicide!

My mom maintained for years that it could only have been the work of a river otter - dad and I laughed her out of the room every. single. time.

Sorry, Mom, we should have believed you.

Note: to get to Steve's yard, this family of otters had to haul themselves out of Lake Washington, find their way past the solid block of lake-front homes, cross a street, climb a hill, cross the Burke Gilman Bike Trail, zip under a fence, cross a lawn, and then dive into the pond. Don't think that these guys are exclusively water critters - they can hustle across land at a fast gallop.

Our local zoo is currently doing a research project on urban carnivores and they're asking Washington residents to record their sightings of the meat-eating animals that live in our neighborhoods.

Want to see what is in your 'hood? Check out the map.

According to user-submitted data, we had a bobcat on the field where Ben plays baseball, a red fox in Wedgwood, an opossum in Maple Leaf, and coyotes/raccoons....everywhere. The video footage of the bobcat is pretty cool - I think the red fox sighting is slightly suspect. No bears yet within city limits. I'm wondering if the bobcat population has benefited from the explosion of rabbits that our city has experienced this year - we've got bunnies coming out of our ears.

Got anything to add to the map?

xo,
Sonja

Photos. T. Dorrance. Thanks WS, for the push to get blogging again!

Birds and Beasts

My Dears, Here is your ornithologically-related eye-candy for the day:

Urban Wildlife. Bring it!

Our blockwatch captain has sent out a few notices about a pair of coyotes that have been observed in the neighborhood this past month. I am thrilled. Absolutely tickled pink. And would gladly sacrifice one of the chickens to the Coyote Cause if it meant that they decided to stick around on a permanent basis. Based on the number of lost cat notices (three) observed on our walk this morning, it looks like my neighbors are unintentionally contributing their outdoor felines as well. Heh. A good reason to have an indoor cat, in my humble opinion. The native bird population will thank you. See this article here . It is illuminating, especially this little tidbit:

In a newly completed study, Dr. Marra and his students used radio transmitters to track fledgling survival in two Washington suburbs: Bethesda and my own Takoma Park. The towns are similar socioeconomically and demographically, but while much of Takoma Park is crawling with outdoor cats, many streetscapes in Bethesda are, for reasons that remain unclear, largely cat-free. At least partly as a result of this discrepancy, Dr. Marra said, fledgling survivorship among Bethesda birds is about 55 percent, similar to what you would see in a natural population. But for birds that happen to be born in my tree-lined paradisiacal hamlet, only 10 percent last long enough to take wing.

In other news, I saw a sea lion basking on a dock in Lake Washington today. In 20 years of living near the lake (and spending many an evening in a crew shell), I don't recall such a sight.

Question of the Day: Being Green with Kids?

Seen on a Greenwood Avenue car the other day

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In our world today, is it possible to be 'green' but still have children? At the moment, it's hip to have an ecofriendly outlook (prius? cloth grocery bags? organic garden? check.) but many would argue that producing a future American consumer is hardly environmentally friendly. As a possible future 'breeder', should I even be saving my plastic bags? My generation is facing population issues that weren't on the table 25 years ago.

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On a related note, this is an exceptionally interesting article on couples that are waiting to have children due to the economic downturn. Be sure to read to the very end as I thought the bit about Jennifer Gniadecki's outlook on life was quite interesting. And of course, you can catch up on the latest drama in the world of excessive numbers of children being born at one time: See Octuplets article.

Fainting, Fires, Snakes, and Bugs

Boy has this been a long week filled with long days. Deeply satisfying but bone-wearyingly exhausting with moments of extreme embarrassment. I was ready to go to bed two hours ago.

Monday started off on a sour note. While meeting with both subcontractors and a client at a job site, I passed out mid job-walk and was thankfully saved from taking a nose dive into the asphalt parking lot by our truly, truly awesome subcontractor. Thank you, Chuck. You have earned my eternal gratitude. You get to tell your children that you are an incredible super hero (Guess what I did today kids, I saved a girl right as she was collapsing into a dead faint) and I got to avoid a broken nose (or head/bones) and unsightly bruises.

I have about 30 seconds of warning before I pass out: I lose my hearing, colors get saturated, I get tunnel vision, and I get sick to my stomach. During that time, I have the following debate with myself:

First thought: OH CRAP. Here we go again.
Second thought: If I leave right now, can I make it around the corner so people can't see me hit the floor?
Third thought: No. Not enough time. Better fess up RIGHT NOW and let people know that you're about to keel over. It's better to give people warning rather than just pitch towards the ground.

So, I fessed up along the lines of: "Gentlemen, I'm feeling faint" Or something to that effect, I really can't recall exactly. The next thing I knew I was on the ground with a safety vest acting as a pillow and two people staring down at me. I guess our contractor reached out right as I was tipping over.

Yeah, not my proudest moment. I seem to pass out about once every two years. The last time was also during a site walk and I was stuck in an incredibly tiny, cramped, hot office for a lengthy period of time. It was the back room of a surf shop. I think I took out a row of wet suits as I went over but I can't remember that too well, either. Thankfully, a coworker (who I was training!) was able to step in and finish the inspection.

And two years prior to that was my first, and probably most embarrassing fainting experience. When I worked at the Pacific Science Center, we had a collection of boa constrictors and a partnership with the University of Washington's vet school to oversee their health. One day, our vet brought in a group of students to sex our snakes and give a presentation. I'm not going to go into the details of determining the sex of a snake but I will say that it involves long metal probes and the snake becomes a tad bit irritable. Thankfully we had plenty of willing people to lend a hand. Did I mention that the snake room was incredibly small, hot, and filled with about 10 people? I didn't notify anyone that time and I made it as far as the door before I fainted, bloodied my nose against the door, became tangled in a nearby phone cord and ultimately ended up in the disinfectant foot bath. But I'll tell you one thing: those vet students were amazing. I had my head propped up, my knees bent, and a cool washcloth across my forehead before I even woke up. They were good.

I'm getting better now: I know how much time I have before it happens and no matter the embarrassment, it's better to tell people and sit down on the ground, immediately. Once every two years isn't too bad, either. Additionally, I now have some of Chris' biking gu in my purse. Next time I'm also going to try my dad's technique of clenching my stomach muscles to get a fresh rush of blood throughout my body.

Today was another one of my famous one-day work trips. I flew up to Oakland and then drove to a tiny town east of Modesto. Beautiful, but windy weather. My rental car was a tiny Chevy Aveo; it was a challenge to keep it on the road and not knocked into the ditch with every passing gust. I'm guessing the wind aided a couple brush fires that I passed; possibly a result of forlorn and abandoned cigarettes.I found a few interesting critters at the site. Anybody have some guesses for this mysterious bug? And a sad, dessicated lizard; dead in a desert of concrete.

The highlight of my day today was having lunch with my very best college chum, Melissa Hill. She works in Stockton and it was a very short jaunt over from my site. Missy, it was so great to see you! It's never long enough but someday we'll be closer, geographically, which will hopefully lead to more get-togethers.

So that, in a long nutshell, was my week. I'm looking forward to a nice, easy day tomorrow and then the weekend. Finally. And now to bed.

Bruins

I realize you're probably tired of articles by now but here is one last one from the Seattle Times:

Bear attacks have Anchorage on edge

ANCHORAGE — Even in a city whose logo is "Big Wild Life," the summer of 2008 is testing residents' tolerance for large carnivores.

The problem is bears — black bears and bigger grizzlies. So far this summer, three people have been mauled in the city.

Some people say humans are to blame for the confrontations and insist that no bears should be killed because of the attacks.

Rest of the article here.

Shark Rant

So I'm getting a little annoyed by all the brouhaha surrounding the recent fatal shark attack in the Bahamas. Evidently a man died after going on a shark watching trip in which the dive operator chummed the area in a deep water location. Chumming isn't legal in many states, including Florida, which is why many tour operators have moved to the Bahamas. I recognize that many people have [mostly]irrational fears regarding the big fish species; however, I just tend to be a little ticked when they take them out on sharks. According to the International Shark Attack File, only a SINGLE person died last year of an unprovoked shark bite. One person. Jeez, look at the number of people killed in car accidents every year.

I can understand why many of you would be going: Why is she so concerned about sharks? Who cares? I know, it seems a bit silly. But I actually kind of like sharks. They're fascinating animals. Besides, doesn't this guy look friendly?!I think sharks are incredibly misunderstood and their numbers, worldwide, are suffering horribly, mostly due to the demented demand for shark fin soup. We're hoping to go diving with whale sharks on our trip to Belize and someday we'll do a cage dive with the great whites near Dyer Island off the coast of South Africa. And I want future generations to be able to do the same thing.

But I want to stress a couple differences between those dives (Belize, South Africa) and the ones that were being conducted off the coast of the Bahamas (and which resulted in 2008's first casualty). First of all, chumming is the process of throwing rotting fish guts into the water. Sharks have an incredible sense of smell; in fact, it's their primary method for finding prey (on many occasions). Second, this company was chumming in deep water. Smaller shark (nurse and reef) species tend to live in shallow waters and these sharks are relatively harmless. The bigger sharks like bull, tiger, lemon and white sharks live in the deep ocean and these species tend to be the more aggressive ones. I'd bet you big money that the shark that bit the Austrian dude was one of those. This company essentially promised food by throwing in the fish guts but failed to deliver. I'd say a handy scuba diver is the next best thing.

Ok, I'm done ranting for today. I'm off to go pack! Oh my poor Bails, I miss him already. I dropped him off at the doggie motel tonight (after a good romp at the dog park) and I keep looking down at my feet, wondering where my 100-lb foot warmer has gone off to.

Geography Quiz, Take One

So I inherited my love of maps directly from my mom. She can't go anywhere without a road map and she was completely appalled that Chris and I only used google maps to get directions, rather than relying on an honest-to-goodness physical piece of paper map to get around. I haven't showed her our Garmin navigation system (thank you Greg!!) which I use practically every day. I'm not sure if she'll be impressed or disgusted. Regardless, you can't have a conversation on world events with my mom without her running over to the globe or atlas to look up the location. I was chuckling over this the other day when I realized that my knowledge of geography has suffered a bit lately. I could definitely use a refresher. I told Chris that I need to find those plastic placemats maps I had as a kid. You could feed the body and the mind while chowing down some cheerios. I think I also had the puzzles. Those were helpful. Today, I'm not sure I could even correctly place all the states on the map. All those rather flat and boring midwest states tend to run together for me at this point. Can I name all the capitals? New Hampshire? Kentucky? South Dakota? Hmmm. No. Give me a western state and I'm good, not so much for the rest of the country. Pathetic, eh?

So, we're going to start a little game. A quiz, really. I'm going to show you a geographic area, and you are going to try and name the countries that are shown.

We'll start off with an easy one: CENTRAL AMERICA

Take a nice long look at the map...

Now start naming those countries!! All of the country names are covered in red. Bonus points for correctly naming the capital (blue). Oh, and you can double click on the image to enlarge it.

If you need a little help, here are the countries that you need to find: Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala.

I happen to have been to most of these countries (with the exception of Guatemala and Honduras, and not counting an airport lay-over in El Salvador) so this one was pretty easy-peasy for me. Let's move on to a slightly harder one!!

Geography Quiz, Take 2

Ok, let's make this a little more difficult. The Middle East continues to be a rather hot area at the moment and will likely continue to remain so far into the future. Therefor, it is imperative that we can tap into our geographic knowledge of the region when Israel, Iraq and Syria pop up in the news.

Take a nice long look at the aerial photograph:

Now, can you identify the countries that have their names concealed? Try double clicking on the image to get a larger picture.

If you can't name them outright, here is a little help: The countries are India, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Whew!

And here is the final map:

So, how did you do? Not too bad, eh?

Garden Things

I splurged a bit this week since I was having to keep myself occupied in a lonely hotel and purchased the following magazines. Who knew there was a Water Garden Magazine?!?!Eureka!
So, I've decided that I need to make one of these wreath/ball things. Aren't they fabulous looking? I've got a small collection of plants right now and I've been practicing with clippings and succulent reproduction. The hardest part is being patient; I hate waiting. So, once my mini sempervivum nursery gets off the ground, I'm going to try my hand at one of the wreaths. Or maybe the ball, which is even more visually interesting.

Speaking of plants: Did you know that there is a plant called Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum tectorum)? It's a succulent (of course). So, I've decided that once we buy a home I'm going to invite the fine folks at the Seattle Urban Farm Company over to help me get my organic garden rolling and to help construct my hen house. It should definitely have a sod roof consisting of hens and chicks, don't you think? Maybe I could even make it my first rammed earth building. Oh the possibilities!

By the way, for those of you living in the Seattle Area, the Garden Show is up and running at the convention center. Here are a couple of photos:
I'm actually pretty fond of this pond. I've been discouraged lately because a lot of the ponds I've been seeing online and in magazines try very hard to look 'natural' and frankly, I think they fail miserably. Too many rocks around the edge look fake and contrived and I can't stand many of the crappy pond ornaments the most people seem to enjoy. So my line of thinking has swung completely in the other direction: maybe we should focus on water gardens that are clearly man-made yet contain natural elements? I like this one because it has lots of nice solid granite and a very elegant center rock. It even has a rock that could be used by turtles as a sunning spot.

Backyard Stonehenge, anyone?

Oh lovely pots.

Planet Earth

Chris and I have been spending a bit of time lately watching tv; a relatively rare thing for us. We're making our way through the Planet Earth series and the photography is simply breathtaking.

According to Wikipedia:
Planet Earth is an Emmy Award-winning BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenbourough and produced by Alastair Fothergill. It was first broadcast in the UK in 2006. The series was co-produced with the Discovery Chanel and was described by its makers as 'the deifnitive look at the diversity of our planet'. It was also the first of its kind to be filmed almost entirely in high def. The series was nominated for the Pioneer Audience Award for Best Programme at the 2007 BAFTA TV awards.
Sonja here again: I'd highly recommend watching this series. Even Chris, who typically isn't as interested in nature films as I am, has been avidly watching along with me. So, put 'em on your netflix queue or give me a call and I'll send you a couple CDs (but only if you promise to send them back!).

Watching the series definiately reminds me that we still have a lot of traveling left to do. I'm adding a couple of new items to my life list, including viewing polar bears in the wild (before they're gone) and seeing the hammerhead shark migration.

Hiking, Hawking and Hopping

Spring has definitely sprung in Orange County and Baily and I took a hike up to O'Neil Regional Park since Chris was engaged in a fierce bike ride around Santiago Canyon.
It's been rather rainy lately so the ground was pretty muddy. I was slower than usual going up the hills today; I realized that I was probably carrying several pounds of mud on my boots. Consequently, I'm chalking my turtle pace up to the additional mud weight.
This was a good day for wildlife, probably because we got an early start and it's still pretty cool out these days. There is a cell phone tower at the end of the hike and two hawks were fluffing themselves upon it. Click on the top picture; you can see one bird on either side. I wouldn't be surprised if a nest appeared here in a couple of months.
I would have identified these guys as red tailed hawks but their breasts look a bit too buffy and clear to me. (click on the picture to enlarge). Red tails usually have a slightly mottled breast and very distinct red tail. Any thoughts? Papa?

On the way down the hill I realized that three california vultures were circling us at low altitude (less than 50 feet). Since I still in the land of the living, this was rather disconcerting.

See? I wasn't joking about the mud. This is always a difficult hike for me in the summer because the grass has turned brown, the pond has dried up, and the earth is scorched. I remember this hike as it is right now: green grass, green cacti, a full pond, and most importantly, lots of frogs. A year ago we reached the final hill and discovered that the ground was literally hopping with thousands upon thousands of tiny frogs. It was almost impossible to walk without crushing a few. And new they're back.

I heard them as we walked up the final hill. I was so excited that I said something like: "Bailey! Can you hear the frogs? Hooray!" This prompted a nearby hiker to give me a very strange look, not a big surprise, given the fact that I was addressing my dog. Anyway, the frogs have reappeared.
I don't know where they go for 9 months out of the year but they're back with a vengeance. This must be mating season because it was pretty loud up there and they kept croaking, even when I was nosing around in the grass trying to determine their location. These guys are about two inches in length. I'm going to keep my eyes out for eggs (and tadpoles).
I've tentatively identified these guys as California Tree Frogs, despite the distinct lack of trees in the area. Click here for more information.

Frog in motion.

Yes, We truly live in a concrete world.