re: #116 oaktree

When I was out there I was running my parent’s “trap line” to catch the mice and chipmunks that kept invading the garage. (There were also pack rats - but you needed larger traps for them.) I had found a dead mouse and dumped it on one of the ant hills in the yard for processing*. The next day I was walking the loop in the yard and heard this “whup whup whup” noise. Out of the tall grass about 20’ ahead of me rose a raven. It had been working the ant hills to scavenge the rodent corpses I’d been leaving there. Now THAT was a monstrous bird.

* - Where my parents lived the area was volcanic rock, sand, rabbit brush, cheat grass, and scraggly juniper. The area got about 10” of precipitation a year and was essentially desert. The birdbath was very popular as a the local watering hole of the birds and also a beehive. And the yard also had 6-8 ant hills that were each a couple of feet across. Not real aggressive - mainly collected cheat grass seeds and got eaten by the ant lions that were in the sandy areas.

Yikes! Do you work for Orkin?

We get a considerable number of hawks in the backyard. I live in Miami, but we have a good amount of wild life. The hawks are beautiful, but I wonder why they come by. Do they eat squirrels? We have a lot of squirrels.