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Wildlife Sightings Today

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    • For the past few weeks during early AM walks, I usually encounter a small herd of deer foraging in the landscaping of surrounding homes. The mountain snow depth has forced them to a lower elevation for food access.

      Neighbours are complaining their bird feeders are knocked from branches and trampled.

      I've set up a trail camera and will check it in a few days for results.

      Lest we forget.....


      SSgt Ray Rangel - USAF
      SrA Elizabeth Loncki - USAF
      PFC Adam Harris - USA
      MSgt Eden Pearl - USMC

    • Dan76 wrote:

      For the past few weeks during early AM walks, I usually encounter a small herd of deer foraging in the landscaping of surrounding homes. The mountain snow depth has forced them to a lower elevation for food access.

      Neighbours are complaining their bird feeders are knocked from branches and trampled.

      I've set up a trail camera and will check it in a few days for results.
      Lots of fresh elk and deer tracks, but alas no trail camera. Apparently someone wanted it. I thought it well hidden but the tracks I left apparently led someone to the site.

      Lest we forget.....


      SSgt Ray Rangel - USAF
      SrA Elizabeth Loncki - USAF
      PFC Adam Harris - USA
      MSgt Eden Pearl - USMC

    • Dan76 wrote:


      Lots of fresh elk and deer tracks, but alas no trail camera. Apparently someone wanted it. I thought it well hidden but the tracks I left apparently led someone to the site.
      Now that sort of thing really pisses me off.

      I know this gets expensive, but I have heard of people having a second trail camera on their first trail camera, so that if anyone steals the first trail camera, they will have the evidence. Of course, there is also the possibility of losing two trail cameras.

      Sorry you got hit by a thieving, stinking, a-hole.
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

      John Greenleaf Whittier

    • Dan76 wrote:

      Dan76 wrote:

      For the past few weeks during early AM walks, I usually encounter a small herd of deer foraging in the landscaping of surrounding homes. The mountain snow depth has forced them to a lower elevation for food access.

      Neighbours are complaining their bird feeders are knocked from branches and trampled.

      I've set up a trail camera and will check it in a few days for results.
      Lots of fresh elk and deer tracks, but alas no trail camera. Apparently someone wanted it. I thought it well hidden but the tracks I left apparently led someone to the site.
      I hate thieves.
      bacon can solve most any problem.

    • IMScotty wrote:

      Dan76 wrote:

      Lots of fresh elk and deer tracks, but alas no trail camera. Apparently someone wanted it. I thought it well hidden but the tracks I left apparently led someone to the site.
      Now that sort of thing really pisses me off.
      I know this gets expensive, but I have heard of people having a second trail camera on their first trail camera, so that if anyone steals the first trail camera, they will have the evidence. Of course, there is also the possibility of losing two trail cameras.

      Sorry you got hit by a thieving, stinking, a-hole.
      A sound tactic, however the second one was on loan.

      Lest we forget.....


      SSgt Ray Rangel - USAF
      SrA Elizabeth Loncki - USAF
      PFC Adam Harris - USA
      MSgt Eden Pearl - USMC

    • Sorry guys. My Facebook setting is friends only. I know you understand that reasoning. I'll try and put the video on here another way. Shoot me a friend request if you like. BobbyJo Sargent. (pic is of wife looking over left shoulder) Might not be for a week or more till I respond. We're going on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean this Saturday and we just had friends come in last night and more coming in tomorrow so we're doing the South Florida tour guide thingy. So it's not that I'm ignoring you or rejecting your request, it's just that I may not be on for a while. Stay warm.
      Changes Daily→ ♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫♪♫ ← Don't blame me. It's That Lonesome Guitar.

    • milkman wrote:

      Sorry guys. My Facebook setting is friends only. I know you understand that reasoning. I'll try and put the video on here another way. Shoot me a friend request if you like. BobbyJo Sargent. (pic is of wife looking over left shoulder) Might not be for a week or more till I respond. We're going on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean this Saturday and we just had friends come in last night and more coming in tomorrow so we're doing the South Florida tour guide thingy. So it's not that I'm ignoring you or rejecting your request, it's just that I may not be on for a while. Stay warm.
      Yup, I get it. Have a safe fun trip! Hope your able to get some divin' in. :thumbup:

    • Not my photo but I saw one of these today.
      Quokka. Common on Rottnest Island but quite rare on mainland. Today was only my second ever mainland sighting.
      I was walking a mile into a Bibbulmun hut to leave some business cards for the Casa about 40 mile from home. Dropped a section hiker off so was there anyway.
      Images

      • FB_IMG_1457170015499.jpg

        83.67 kB, 596×588, viewed 263 times
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • been following stories from area I grew up in MA. The timber rattlesnake is endangered there. State wildlife people want to start a breeding program & intoduce them on an island in a manmade resivoir built in CCC era to supply Boston with water. It's a protected watershed around Quabbin Resivoir. Media has dubbed it "Rattlesnake Island". It amazes me the fear many people have that has caused such an uproar. I believe it's close to 100 years since anyone has died of a snakebite in MA. Even though I've hiked in areas that are still know to have a rattlesnake population I have never seen on in MA. Probably the same people that complain when mice & rats get in their houses.

      Do a quick search of Rattlesnake Island in MA & see the uproar.

    • MM,

      The fear is irrational. People are freaking out about rattlers on an island in the middle of Quabbin where no one is suppose to go, but meanwhile thousands of people stroll through the Blue Hill Reservation among that population of snakes apparently no worse for the wear.

      I'm not sure the folks doing all the complaining actually ever leave the comfort of their couch.
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

      John Greenleaf Whittier

    • IMScotty wrote:

      MM,

      The fear is irrational. People are freaking out about rattlers on an island in the middle of Quabbin where no one is suppose to go, but meanwhile thousands of people stroll through the Blue Hill Reservation among that population of snakes apparently no worse for the wear.

      I'm not sure the folks doing all the complaining actually ever leave the comfort of their couch.
      One recent article mentioned a local who is actively opposed & hikes around Quabbin. She also hikes Mt Tom area(known habbitat) but says she has cell phone reception there!

      One thing that became apparent for me on PCT was how irrasionable fear of rattlesnakes is. I've seen hikers walk past them inches away without a clue. I once stopped to check a map within sight of a hiker in front of me & had a diamond back rattle a foot away from my feet. I just took a few steps away from his personal space. I could go on & on with encouters, even with the "agressive" & one of the few deadly snakes in US. The fear is irrationable & unfounded. I even know a person who was bitten by a wesern diamondback. He was moving an old stone wall & distubed it's lair. In his 70's it did put him in the hospital for a few days & at one point they thought he might lose the finger he got bite on.

      How many people even know someone that knows someone that has a friend that got bitten by a snake? Media has blow it out of preportion. What makes great TV & movies doesn't normally happen in real life. I have only heard of one AT hiker ever bitten by a rattlesnake, & even he admits it was his fault as he was trying to catch it.

    • Mountain-Mike wrote:

      been following stories from area I grew up in MA. The timber rattlesnake is endangered there. State wildlife people want to start a breeding program & intoduce them on an island in a manmade resivoir built in CCC era to supply Boston with water. It's a protected watershed around Quabbin Resivoir. Media has dubbed it "Rattlesnake Island". It amazes me the fear many people have that has caused such an uproar. I believe it's close to 100 years since anyone has died of a snakebite in MA. Even though I've hiked in areas that are still know to have a rattlesnake population I have never seen on in MA. Probably the same people that complain when mice & rats get in their houses.

      Do a quick search of Rattlesnake Island in MA & see the uproar.
      Might be a good way to thin out the Massholes.
      bacon can solve most any problem.

    • sheepdog wrote:

      Mountain-Mike wrote:

      been following stories from area I grew up in MA. The timber rattlesnake is endangered there. State wildlife people want to start a breeding program & intoduce them on an island in a manmade resivoir built in CCC era to supply Boston with water. It's a protected watershed around Quabbin Resivoir. Media has dubbed it "Rattlesnake Island". It amazes me the fear many people have that has caused such an uproar. I believe it's close to 100 years since anyone has died of a snakebite in MA. Even though I've hiked in areas that are still know to have a rattlesnake population I have never seen on in MA. Probably the same people that complain when mice & rats get in their houses.

      Do a quick search of Rattlesnake Island in MA & see the uproar.
      Might be a good way to thin out the Massholes.
      I was born one. My work has taken me all over this country. Lived in many states & have visited many more. People agree & disagree with me no matter where I go. It's part of what makes the US great. Yet sometimes I wish there was a "Darwin" clause in the law where we could weed out the truely stupid ones.

    • Those 'big fish' are whales and are mammals.

      I've stepped on a western diamondback rattlesnake by accident, about 1965. I was wearing a 75 pound backpack and gear. I moved backwards about 15 feet from a standing jump. The snake went the other direction. My buddy told me he hadn't seen me do that ever before as I knocked him down after floating backwards. No cell phones back then. We were still using the cut and suck method. So, I didn't want to get bit.
      --
      "What do you mean its sunrise already ?!", me.

    • I saw my first rattlesnake last August 2015, while hiking from the Priest south. This was what I wrote about that experience --

      Just about three weeks back now, it was along this section that I saw my first two rattlesnakes.

      Three of us left camp in the area of Seely-Woodsworth Shelter and were heading to Cow Camp Gap for the night. A few miles up the trail I was a couple hundred yards ahead of my two buddies and when I got to Wolf Rocks I thought it was a perfect spot to wait for them to catch up, and once they did we figured it was a perfect spot to take a break.

      Brian walks over to the rocks and after a few moments comes back and said we should check it out, that there was a neat cove formed by the rocks. Hunter and I walk back into the rocks, and Brian was right, but the surrounding rocks of the cove blocked what looked to be a great view. I climbed up the rocks and the view was awesome. Looked down at Hunter and told him he needed to climb up for the view. Problem was the top of the rock was too narrow for even just myself, so I jumped over the laurel growing out of a crevice to a wider perch, back stopped by another large rock. And! That is when I saw my first rattlesnake. There I am mid-jump looking down and seeing a coiled up pissed off rattler rattling away... and he aint tiny. All I could do was tell Hunter to just get out of there and go to our packs. I really didnt have to tell him, he saw and heard the snake as he was starting to come up the rock. At that moment those rattles surely sounded like one of the Navy's electric guns... bbbbzzzzzzzz

      So there I am standing on a ledge, with my back to a six foot rock and a snake between me and the way out. All I could do was wait, and he slithered off, but I kept hearing a rattle. Brian comes up to access the situation and takes a lok and spots a second rattler stretched out under the laurel still looking at me and rattling away. All I can do is keep calm and wait, and while waiting Brian CAREFULLY searches out a back way out and found his way up to the top of the rock behind me.

      After what seemed like forever but more like 10 minutes, the second snake finally turns and goes away and as quickly as I could and with Brian's help I pulled myself up that rock. We got out of there, grabbed our packs and quickly hiked on down the trail, laughing about me almost getting myself "killed" and Hunter begging us not to mention the snakes to his mom... (he told his mom anyway).

      Truth be told though, there was nothing to be scared of. I mean there I was getting to see what is trurly a beautiful and stunning creature and this was my first time seeing and hearing one, and all I had to do was stay calm and relaxed and it would be all good.
      Of course I talk to myself... sometimes I need expert advice.