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woodchuck humor
Pat Kiewicz wrote:
songbird said: Pat Kiewicz wrote: Their two most favorite things IME are apples and mulberry leaves. One time the first sign that a groundhog had gotten past the fence was the defoliation of the young ("bird planted") mulberries on the garden side of the fenceline. this one seems very insistent about whatever weeds it's eating in that one garden. we came back from shopping/errands yesterday and it was out there nibbling. i tagged it solidly yesterday with a pellet so now it has been warned several times. i'm hoping that will be the end of it. I like to imagine that I could blast the things with some high-tech sci-fi laser-sighted weapon. (Maybe after I open that Unobtainium mine.) you can, but many people don't like guns. i don't really even like guns either. i'd much rather have an air-powered pea shooter that can be remotely sighted and operated including enough sensors to alert me to the fact that a critter big enough for me to care about is nosing around. peas i generally don't mind sprouting in random locations nearly as much as i don't want acorns sprouting (i baked a bunch and used a sling-shot for a while, but that was not very effective). Last year the drought was so bad that the stunted babies were driven out on their own earlier than normal. One was small enough to push her way through some chain link into the veggie garden. She ate so much edamame greenery that it wasn't able to push her way back out. What's left of her is now a study skin. oops, but probably very funny to see. kinda like the snake trying to go through a small hole after eating a chipmunk. Just about half her body weight was in her stomach and intestines. It was packed so solid I could hardly believe it. hahaha, wow, little piggy, but when you think about the calories involved and how fast the critter has to grow up plus be able to make it through a winter season... (My daughter the zoology student did a rather thorough disection with measurements but decided not to turn that particular study skin in for credit. All of the study skins and skull she did turn in are now in the university collection--she does good work.) i'm not sure what a study skin is, but it sounds like something done to study anatomy of animals along with taxidermy in some kind of pose? Less than taxidermy, but it preserves the skin and feet along with data about the sex and location of collection. This is not her university, but it gives an idea of what specimens look like and how they might be used: http://www.humboldt.edu/wildmuseum/policy.html thanks, i'll check it out. Next fall, she will be doing independent study/undergraduate research cataloging and organizing the vertebrate collection (skins, skull, etc.). oh! She's still got some skulls to clean this summer, but thankfully, the freezer now only holds a single dead bird waiting to be processed. (She's hoping to find some fresh and reasonably intact birds that are larger to practice on before she tackles it.) are there particular critters she's interested in? You can blame it all on Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs episode about Skulls Unlimited. http://www.skullsunlimited.com/ heh, oh noes, another dangerous web site. songbird |
#2
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woodchuck humor
songbird said:
Pat Kiewicz wrote: She's still got some skulls to clean this summer, but thankfully, the freezer now only holds a single dead bird waiting to be processed. (She's hoping to find some fresh and reasonably intact birds that are larger to practice on before she tackles it.) are there particular critters she's interested in? Tetrapod zoology (anything with four feet, or that had anscestors with four feet), living or extinct. But she's particularly interested in mammals and dinosaurs. You can blame it all on Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs episode about Skulls Unlimited. http://www.skullsunlimited.com/ heh, oh noes, another dangerous web site. It's where I've done some of my Xmas shopping these last few years... Back to woodchucks, though, I suspect that one of them might have nibbled on the tomato plants I was hardening off out on the driveway. It could have been a rabbit, but the browse line was taller than I'd expect for a bunny. Now they are late to go in and partly defoliated to boot! -- Pat in Plymouth MI "Yes, swooping is bad." email valid but not regularly monitored |
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