Critters

Do you remember Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom? I used to watch that show when I was a kid, and loved it. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling like I could make my own wild kingdom show.

Leawood as nature preserve?

I live in an inner suburb—inside the I-435 loop, with medium-size yards and fairly busy streets. But you wouldn’t know that by all the wild life I see on my runs. You’d think I was running in the exurbs or in a natural preserve or something.

I wrote about encountering several raccoons on a run, and I’ve mentioned the crazy numbers of bunnies, squirrels and birds I see. I thought I'd also written about seeing a coyote a couple of times last year (pretty sure it was the same animal, and not a second, different one), but it looks like I only mentioned it on Facebook. That was pretty cool, to be honest.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve run past a gigantic owl on the ground in someone’s yard—it immediately took off and I could not believe how big the wing span was. I hear another owl at a different point on my daily runs, and after having seen the one that took off, I sure hope I never encounter the hooting one up close and personal.

Then there’s the opossum I saw early one Sunday morning shambling from someone’s yard and across the street (I silently urged it to hurry up). That same week, I came pretty close to yet another raccoon that immediately turned tail and ran into the nearest storm drain.

And one morning, as I left the house I saw what I thought was a small leaf twirling in the breeze. Only there was no breeze and it wasn’t a leaf. It was a mouse turning counter clockwise circles as though it could not stop. I have no idea what that was about, and I was pretty glad it was gone when I finished my run.

This morning, I turned on our porch light and stepped out the front door only to encounter an opossum on the front port about three feet from me. I stopped, it stopped, blinked, turned around and hurried off the porch and into our front yard, then started climbing the pine tree at the end of our front porch.

I like critters, I just wish some of these wouldn't get quite so close.

Raccoons and rain

This morning’s run was a little eventful.

First, the raccoons.

Did you read the story about the woman in Maine who was out running one afternoon and was attacked by a rabid raccoon? No, I’m not making this up. I read that story when it first broke, shuddered and promptly forgot about it.

Now remember, I run very early in the morning. It's dark at 5 AM in Kansas, so the only light comes from the streetlights (which aren't always on).

This morning on my own run, I spotted some animals in an intersection ahead of me. I slowed down a bit because I wasn’t sure what they were—I’ve seen squirrels, bunnies, cats and even a coyote or two but none of those matched was I was seeing. Then I realized they were three raccoons. It looked like a full-grown adult and two slightly smaller ones (maybe the off spring?). Well, I remembered that story about the rabid raccoon and thought maybe if I hollered a little bit, they would move off. So I did (not too loudly, though, remember it was around 5 AM).

To my utter shock and immediate adrenaline-dumping fear, they all three turned and ran toward me. Holy crap, that was unnerving. I started backing up, not entirely sure what to do and a little surprised at how fast they were. One couldn’t quite keep up and darted off the road to a tree and scrambled up it, and—whew—the other two ran down into a storm drain. What was odd is that they were by a different storm drain when I startled them, and they had to run up the street (toward me) to get to that specific storm drain. You better believe I hoofed it out of that intersection ASAP.

I was about halfway through my run when the skies just opened up with a torrential downpour. All I could think was the only way out was through, and I’d spend less time out in the rain if I just kept running. About a half mile later, the rain dwindled and stopped. I was so glad . . .until I realized I could hear rain moving toward me from the west. When I say I could hear it, I mean I could hear the sound of another torrential storm pounding the ground.

Well. I was completely soaked when I got home. Kent had very kindly put a towel by the front door, and I needed it.

I never realized running could be so exciting.