POTD: Parallel Play

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I watched these guys for like ten minutes before thinking to photograph them. They were just doing their thing, getting ready for winter, ignoring each other, but right next to each other. I love the cardinal’s red against the brown ground.

There Is Still Time To work On Your Hermit Crab's Costume

>Rockville Central friend Ruth Hanessian at Animal Exchange has passed along word of a very important event.

While it will no doubt be included in Weekend To Weekend, you probably ought to know about it right now. She writes:

All Hermit Crabs are invited to Animal Exchange on Sunday, October 28 for our annual Hermit Crab Costume Contest. Crabs of all sizes and shapes will compete for the funniest, most beautiful, and most creative crab prizes.

3:00 PM is when the event begins and every crab that enters is assured of a memento of their participation. Past winners have included a bunny crab, a ghost and of course there was a fantastic witch one year.

Put on your thinking cap now and start planning for the outfit that will make your crab the prize winner. Some entries have even come with a complete habitat decorated for Halloween.

Ruth says the event is free and is slated for Sunday, October 28 at 3:oo pm at Animal Exchange, 605 Hungerford Drive, Rockville Md.

For further information, call Ruth at 301-424-PETS.

(Image Wikimedia.)

Update from Frank's Pond

Everywhere I go, people ask me “>How are the fish? Was it Melvin?” So here’s an update.

First, I solved the mystery – Racoon. Caught in the act. Late one night I was sitting quietly when it came ambling out from the shadows. After a brief pause and a sideways glance my way, it nonchalantly headed straight for the pond. I had to lunge at it and yell before it turned away to disappear under the deck.

So I began to cover the pond at night with plywood – “putting the fish to bed” as I call it. That may have had an unfortunate consequence. Back when it wasn’t cooling off much at night, I removed the plywood one morning to find two fish fins-up and a third more dead than alive. In first-responder mode, I grabbed the hose and sprayed fresh water into the pond to boost the oxygen level and hopefully keep the others alive. But it was too late for the ailing one.

So after three casualties, I was down to two fish. My son confirmed that one of the survivors was in deed Melvin. Even I can tell these two fish apart. So after more than five months we were on a first name basis. Melvin and, well, I call him Howard. And fine specimens they were, each about the size of a Ball Park frank (uncooked, you know, “they plump when you cook ‘em”). So I refreshed the pond with new water and hoped for the best.

I began to notice new behavior. Melvin and Howard became very competitive. Whenever I fed them, they couldn’t be content to just eat. They had to chase each other away from the food. And that’s pretty much all they did, chase each other around. I guess it was a classic case of the Big Fish in a Little Pond. Only in this case, it was two big fish trying to prove who was boss.

Then an early cold snap, and the fish slowed down. For a few days, all they did was a synchronized-floating thing, parallel to each other and slightly offset, usually with Melvin a bit ahead of Howard. Now and then a fin would flutter. But they wouldn’t eat. I could see the flakes of food settled on the bottom of the pond. Gentle words of encouragement, even guilt trips about starving fish in far-away places who’d love to eat what they were ignoring, didn’t work. I fought the urge to show them what good stuff it was by eating some myself. Even when it warmed up, and they got more active, they still wouldn’t eat. I decided they were depressed.

I was right. Last week I found Melvin marooned on top of a bed of fake seaweed floating in a corner of the pond. He had beached himself, like those whales when they decide they just can’t take another Navy SONAR test. He must have realized that summer was coming to an end, and made a frantic attempt to just end it all. His genetic code must have hinted at his likely fate, and he didn’t want to go out that way. How could he know that I wouldn’t let him freeze when winter set in? He’d be going to my friend’s huge, heated pond where fish frolic year round, if he could just hang on for a few more weeks.

Melvin looked like a goner for sure, but I tried fish CPR. Actually, I just poked at him, and he sunk listlessly to the bottom, settling on one side. I watched, wondering if I should put him out of his misery. Then, some movement! He started doing that fish thing – the open and closing mouth action – but very slowly. I watched for a while, but it didn’t look good. Not much more than a fluttering fin, and that mouth, o..p..e..n..i..n..g, then c..l..o..s..i..n..g. Pathetic! Surely he saw that bright light at the end of the tunnel, where Moby Dick stood gently beckoning “come on in, it’ll be OK.” I went back to work accepting that my next visit to the pond would find Melvin fully checked-out.

But No! Melvin made a miraculous recovery. A week after his botched suicide attempt, he is almost back to his old self. He still chases Howard around some, but now he will eat. I feed them separately now. I give Melvin a bit of food, and then Howard some on the other side of the pond, before Melvin catches on. It’s working – Mel’s not as sharp as he once was.

So yesterday I performed what will probably be my last pond maintenance this time around. A near-complete water change, clean the pump and flush the line to get the waterfall flowing full-tilt again. If I can keep these two survivors from harm, and from driving each other crazy, for just a few more weeks, I will consider the season a huge success. But I will miss my fish. The lifeless pond in winter is a stark sight. But there should be a next April, if we humans can keep it together for a while longer. I hope so.

POTD: Fallen

>It’s the first day of Fall, and my thoughts turn to…cicadas, for some reason. Remember these guys?

POTD: Little Rabbit Fru Fru

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Another in the series of “little guys on the lawn” — this time a bunny.

POTD: Horsey

>This is a close-up of the sign for a construction company working on Town Square. It is the coolest logo I have seen in a long time.

POTD: Feeling Squirrelly

> Another in the neighborhood series of cute little guys on lawns. When I first took this picture (which was much larger) I did not notice the squirrell.

POTD: Six Steps

>These pawprints will live on for posterity.

[Photo by Carson.]

POTD: Bugged

> I love driving by this building. It’s the side of the Womack Pest Control building on Congressional.

Face To Face With a Porcupine Killer

> OK. A bear, in Rockville, on the deck, is a bit unusual. I’ll give you that. But I had a close encounter the other day with an animal that I had never seen before. I bet you never saw one of these bad boys, either. It was quite unnerving.

I was relaxing on July 3rd up in Wakefield, Rhode Island, after morning coffee with relatives at an old country homestead. Everyone else got up from the garden table, and mobilized for the first adventure of the day. But I propped my feet up and gazed out beyond the big old maple trees ringing the lawn and out across the meadow. A big swath of the center of it had been mowed. Mowed paths led from the meadow to the right, to a break in the treeline that ringed a pond, and to the left down the hill to woods along the creek. So peacefull and serene in the cool morning breeze, just like a Lifetime movie, or a Hallmark card.

Then an odd, sleek, black creature appeared in the tree-break at the pond edge and darted out into the open meadow. It happened so fast, and was so unfamiliar, that it really startled me. Only about 50 yards away, but I had no clue what it was. About the size of a large dog, but with very short legs. It didn’t run like a dog though; it seemed to squat and then lurch, repeatedly, with its head held up high. Weird. But very fast, and in a fluid motion. It seemed uncomfortable out in the open meadow, desparate for cover, oddly streaking across the landscape.

What the heck was this thing? I called out
in vain for someone to come see it, and wondered aloud was it a seal, strayed from the ocean a mile inland? Maybe an otter on steroids? (My son Michael later said he heard me yell “What the…? a walrus?”, but I’ll deny that to the death.) Then it was gone, below the hill, and into the woods along the creek.

Finally they came to see what the excitement was. I tried to explain it to Michael and to Nick, our host and native of this part of the world for 55 years or so. I said it ran like it was “doing the worm”, but really fast. And it looked like a big dog, but had short legs. Or was it no legs? Or was it shorter back legs? Nick asked a couple questions, considered more common fauna, then said, “Maybe it was a Fisher Cat. I saw one once, but didn’t know what it was at the time, just like you. Then last year I heard guys talking about a Fisher Cat near a house farther out in the country.” So we sent Michael to the internet – here we go, Animal Planet.

As soon as we saw these pictures, I knew we had him! Not a cat, a member of the weasel family. Males can grow to more than four feet long (mine was more like six feet, well, maybe five). Very fast. Nocturnal. One of New England’s most elusive animals and very rarely seen. Chilling screams in the night like a high-pitched child’s cry. Ferocious predator of small game, eats porcupines – porcupines?. Yikes! Very spooky indeed.

So, I am sorry, but I just can’t get too excited about Boo-Boo scrambling over your deck railing looking for a picnic basket. I came face to face – well, sort of – to a porcupine killer! I felt like I had seen Bigfoot. It was the highlight of my trip. You just never know what’s coming at you….

POTD: A Whale Of A Tale

> These little guys were in the window of Toy Kingdom, the fabulous toy store in Town Square.

Bears In Rockville?!

WJLA-TV >reports that there has been tell of black bears seen in Rockville. Yes, you read correctly.

A black bear cub was seen at the intersection of Seven Locks Road and Democracy Boulevard Thursday night. The first bear reports were Wednesday afternoon, in a nearby area.

While this is out of our coverage area, there’s nothing to stop our furry friends from sauntering our way. Says resident Sami Ahmad, “I’m scared.”

Black bears are “opportunistic” feeders, which means they’ll eat anything they can get at easily. So, clean up that Independence Day barbecue!

(Photo wildernessclassroom.com)