Category: Animals

Ten Things We Saw At The Fair

July 24, 2016

Yesterday we went to the Saratoga County Fair! It was very hot which was a drag, but when we were there a cloudburst led to a 10 minute rain shower which cooled things off nicely. Here’s some of the things we saw at the fair…

You can buy all sorts of farm equipment at these fairs, and the above was considerably smaller (and less expensive) than most. I wanted to sit in the climate-controlled sealed cabin of a $70,000 ditch-digger but it was locked 🙂

While there didn’t seem to be as many animals as we see at the fairs we regularly go to, the quality and presentation of them was particularly nice. The rabbit shown above won first prize in a cavy contest!

I forget the name of the breed, but this is a goat with notably tiny ears. There were several like him at the fair; just a few of the abundance of goats they had on display. In fact there were more goats than horses, cows, sheeps or pigs. It was a very goaty fair!

I fired a bow! Six arrows cost $2, and since I hadn’t done this since a ‘farm holiday’ in 198X, I figured it was time to try again. Although they were clearly giving us beginner bows, I was surprised by how difficult it was to pull back and how even more difficult it was to aim. I’d need a lot of training if I wanted to become a Ranger! (I was firing at the dinosaur target but never hit it…)

I also fired a gun! 14 shots of the air rifle also cost $2, and since I couldn’t ever recall firing a gun I had to try. My aim was far better than with the bow and arrow, and would have been even better had the sights not been off at the start. She adjusted them after my first 4 or 5 shots, and the last few (including the two on the bullseye) were taken with the good sights.

While shooting the bow and gun were academically interesting, I think I’ve scratched that itch for another 40-odd years 😉

Speaking of pro-hunting propaganda, they had an entire room full of taxidermy of local wildlife. This guy is a groundhog, and innocent and cute creature that digs holes in the ground and can often be seen grazing in the grass at the side of the road. Who hunts these?!?!

A typical vendor in the food area. There were dozens like these, all serving overpriced, unhealthy but no-doubt delicious vittles. We ate before the fair, and therefore were able to resist their temptations.

As always we enjoyed the art displays, especially from local schools. Speaking as a pyrographer myself, I had quite a strong reaction to this award winning piece…

Lastly – and by no means least – the rides! The fair had a pretty good midway, but the heat (and rain) meant the rides weren’t too popular with the punters. I reckon at night they’d be going strong, but much of the rest of the fair (like the animal displays) are closed then so we never go at night. It would be nice to live very close to one of these so I could go and see the rides going with all the lights shining.

We also watched a truck pull contest, saw some gigantic horses, gawked at the vendors selling useless/unwanted stuff to passers-by and decided the grizzly bear show would perhaps be more sad than entertaining so gave it a skip.

All in all, a fun day at the fair 🙂

Monterey

May 30, 2016

Monterey Aquarium was as good as I remember it, with a wonderful collection of all sorts of sea life.

The highlights were the ‘tentacles’ exhibit and the jellyfish.

Absolutely recommended if you visit Monterey.

Dinner was in a Chinese place slightly off the tourist street. Importantly we sat inside, since temperatures had fallen into the ‘god it’s freezing’ zone in the early evening!

This morning I went out early to watch seals near the marina. I wasn’t disappointed 🙂

I believe there’s eight of them in the above picture 🙂

Wildlife XIII: The Phantom Menace

November 10, 2015

I had a cunning plan. It started when I bought this:

And filled this on our back patio:

I put the wildlife camera quite close, aimed right at this feeder. What would visit in the night?

The next morning it looked like this:

And had moved about 2 meters closer to the house. A true mystery indeed. Let’s look at the evidence…

The first few dozen photos (since no animal had apparently visited during the daylight hours) showed the above, some sort of tiny mammal that made repeated and frequent trips back and forth between the feeder and the trees next to our patio. At first I thought it may be a chipmunk but then I realized it seems too small and the tail is too thin. I quickly dismissed the possibility of it being a displaced Fawn Hopping Mouse so I conclude it may be a simple common mouse? For comparison here’s a chipmunk that stopped by 2 days later:

Anyway back to the first night. As I said this little mouse (?) was a busy bee, visiting the feeder continuously for about 2.5 hours (during which over 100 photos were taken). But then he seemed to be scared away by a ghost that emerged from the dark:

OMG! It’s a super rare skunk! A big one too, much larger than the baby I got in a single shot earlier this year. Could he be the same one? At any rate he wasn’t as shy as the little guy in mid summer, spending quite some time at the feeder showing off his big beautiful bushy tail:

And then he himself was crowded out when the deer approached and dominated the feeder for almost an hour:

These guys were big and bold and determined, and they explained why the feeder moved so much since they pushed it toward the house as they fed. But then Mr Skunk said returned bellowing “Oh no you don’t!”:

This seemed to scare the deer away, and after another quick push or two of the feeder they left it to Sir Skunk (who now seemed even bigger and bushier):

At this point the animals were just grazing on the bits and pieces that had dropped onto the ground, although the deer returned and eventually nudged the feeder completely out of camera range. By mid morning the patio looked like this:

And a bit later like this:

You can see the guy up the tree feeding out of the squirrel feeder in that shot. One thing I’ve learned from using these cameras is that squirrels and chipmunks seem to be almost completely diurnal, curled up cutely in their homes during the night when the deer, rabbits, skunks, possums, mice, foxes, raccoon and other creatures of the night come out to play.

I left the camera our for a few days and nights, but most of the action was in the first 24 hours. When Tiny Bunny hopped through on the second night…

…I reckon she barely waved a whisker in the direction of the now almost-completely-empty feeder.

Robot Claw