BOB:  Hope you are feeling better.  I'd hate to think of the fml's favorite
esoteric knowledge source and bizarre story master extraordinaire feeling
under the weather.  Just read your Saturday post...
 
>An olfactory signpost.  Want to see alot of poop everywhere?  Add 5
>ferrets to an established group of 14.  Each and everyone will forget
>what the litter pan was for.  Land mine city.  Look out!  Aw
 
We'll be thinking good thoughts for you.  Here's a recent mammalian
adventure to cheer you up.  It's "X-rated" for X-citing wildlife
encounters...
 
Wish you had been with my husband Steve and I last weekend in the Chiricahua
Mountains of S. Arizona.  Our goal was birdwatching (Elegant Trogons,
Calliope hummingbirds, Red-faced warbler, Mexican Junco, Painted Redstart,
and other SE Arizona delights), catching up on Arizona plant names I've
forgotten, and visiting with numerous old friends (I've known them a long
time, they're not aged; well, not any more than you and I are... ;-) ).  The
numerous hummingbird feeders outside our friends' cabin are hit *hard* every
night by the long-nosed and long-tongued bats that summer and breed in
nearby areas.  We spent the evenings sitting on their front porch watching
the bats come in and feed.  And the adorable little juvenile skunks (3
kinds; striped, hooded and hog-nosed -- didn't see any spotted skunks,
although they are around and I've seen them there back in the 70s) came
gamboling about the meadow grasses, looking for bits of melon rind, beetles,
grubs and possible goodies our friends often put out in the evening.  The
young skunks moved remarkably like a curious ferret, trotting about or
making small leaps, holding their tails in a horizontal "sine wave" until
they found something of interest, then putting their tails straight up like
large, beautiful sweeping flowing black-&-white fans.
 
Since we were sandal-footed we kept having to hiss or cluck our tongues when
they nosed up to our toes... lick, lick, lick, chomp is ok for domestic
ferrets, but wild skunks may not be willing to stop when we say so.  They
would look up at us with absolute astonishment, "Oh, there's a large
something attached to those curious looking, stinky smelling (we hiked all
day) pink lumps!" Then they'd amble off another direction for a minute, then
head back to check us out again.  On several occasions one would sneak up
behind us, and our first notice was hearing a snuffle-shuffle under
someone's chair, then looking over the arm and seeing those beady little
Mustelid eyes peering up at us with great interest.  They looked so furry
and cuddly... *almost* enough to make you want to pick one up and snuggle
it...
 
Watching two of them stand off over some choice grub or worm they found in
the wet grass reminded us of their naughty habits.  Tails up, they stomped
their feet at each other, one "pooted" like an excited ferret, and a brief
puff of eau de Mustelid wafted by us for a moment.  OOOOHHHHhhhhh, yeah, he
wasn't called Pepe le Pew for nothing.
 
I got a chuckle on reading Caras (N.A.  Mammals) where he talks about skunk
variety in phenotypes, the "idealized" skunk, and then notes "The real ideal
skunk, as we shall be seeing, is one that is at least twenty feet away."
 
Since it was raining during all of this, Lori had put their large hanging
Boston fern down on the grassy area a few feet in front of the porch to
catch the moisture.  She and her husband retired for the night, and we
promised we would put the fern back up on its hanger (it would block our
view of one of the bat feeders otherwise) when we went in to bed.  A very
friendly young mule deer doe (both the occasional white tails and several
mules come in to crop the grass every evening) *really* wanted that fern.
She spent several minutes meandering slowly closer, nibbling the grass,
gazing sweetly our direction, sidling a bit closer to the fern.  At one
point Steve "clucked" his mouth at her, and she looked up with a "who, me?"
look that was adorable.  She moved forward, he clucked, she paused a moment.
She edged up, he clucked, she paused.  She slllooooowwwwlllyyyy stretched
out her neck and rreeaaacchhhedddddd for the fern fronds.  Steve clucked
again, and stood partway up, 3 feet away from her, on the opposite side of
the huge fern.  The two of them had a wonderful stare-down, while she
slllooooowwwwlllyyyyy moved one dainty front foot then the other a bit
closer, and stretched forth a tiny bit more... Steve reached out for the top
of the wire "cage" which held the potted fern.  She casually reached that
extra inch, nipped off the top several inches of one frond, and pulled her
head back slightly.  She blinked slowly, and delicately chewed her stolen
morsel as Steve moved the fern from between them to behind him.  She gave
him an incredibly reproachful look, and walked away.  Wish you could have
been there... I'm sure the commentary would have been "scent-tillating".
 
Let me also say, parenthetically, that we are *all* aware of the problems of
feeding wild animals.  Shucks, Southern Arizona even made yesterday's Dear
Abby column about not feeding wild animals.  However: a) the bats have lost
considerable amounts of territory where they previously fed on their
migratory routes through Mexico and the US, so helping them fatten up a tad
before they head south doesn't seem so awful.  A former "SO" received his
PhD in chiropteran behaviour, working from Panama to New Mexico, so they
hold few terrors for me or my friends, and I've long-since had the rabies
series, after being bitten by a likely rabid dog when I was living in a Seri
Indian village on the coast of Western Mexico.  b) Bob and Lori only put out
small bits of food occasionally, mostly for a coati that they helped raise
after its mother was killed.  c) The friendly doe was also raised there on
the station grounds (we were at the Southwestern Research Station, owned by
the American Museum of Natural History, New York City) last year.  and d)
Deer and skunks and coati and javelina and ringtails and raccoons have spent
40 years sheltering (from hunters and drunken revelers and careless drivers)
on the station grounds, and many are fairly unafraid of humans on *that*
property, but will shy away from folks once off the "neutral turf".
 
                   ---JodyLee and Steve---
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[Posted in FML issue 1685]