Street lessons

Deer, like pigeons, spiders, and rats (this last, unfortunately), somehow adjust readily to urban environments. I've seen them in downtown Greater Vancouver, tripping unconcernedly across the street. Here in Campbell River, they browse in vacant lots, in neighbourhood gardens, in the weeds beside the highway.

Yesterday, coming out of a store, I met a doe and her fawn beside the parking lot.

The youngster still has his spots. And what big ears they have!*

This street is one of the busiest; there's always traffic. Just across the street, the machines are busy, tearing up the soil, preparing to build something large. A side alley leads to a parking lot, crammed with workers' cars.

And Ma Deer decided to take her youngster over there, away from me and my car.

Fences everywhere; no escape but by the street.

She stood on the side of the street, watching me, watching her fawn, watching the traffic, until it was safe to cross. Her fawn followed.

"Okay! Coast is clear; come on, kid!"

They crossed the road quickly, went towards the parking lot, then veered into a bit of bush, the fawn a few steps behind his mother all the way.

It was like watching a human mother teaching her kid to cross a street; good parenting, Ma Deer!

A store employee, going off work a minute later, told me that there's been a small family of deer among those trees across the street. She was glad the fawn is still fine.

*(I erased a couple of distracting cars out of that first photo.)

Fine dining

There's good eating under the palapas. Whether you walk in or fly in.

Here's coconut shrimp, yum!

Enchiladas and guacamole, too! So hard to choose!

My choice; chicken in rajas de chile verde.

Stinker

The last two evenings, just after I've finished watering the gardens, a young skunk has dropped in to look for worms and/or slugs in the wet mud. Tonight I was almost ready for him, with the camera out of its case and on the desk. And the door closed, so I frightened him off by opening it. But he came back:

About a foot, nose to rump.* The board is 3 1/2 inches square.

He hated the flash, and took off running as soon as it went off.

Can immature skunks spray? I looked it up. Yes, they can. They've got the equipment at birth, and learn to use it around the 8th day. So this skunk "teen" is armed and dangerous. He may be able to spray up to 10 feet away. I'll keep my distance.

Every few days, one of the skunks has occasion to stink up the neighbourhood. Maybe a night-prowling cat gets too close, or a raccoon challenges its access to a garbage bin; whatever it is makes us hurry to slam our windows and doors. The smell is sometimes strong enough to burn the back of my throat, and I look for a skunk nearby, without seeing it. It turns out that the animal could be blocks away.

" . . . the spray can cause irritation and even temporary blindness, and is sufficiently powerful to be detected by a human nose up to a mile down wind." (Wikipedia)

*Adult sizes are given, variously, from about 13 inches nose to rump, plus up to 10 inches for the tail, or 22.5 to 31.5 inches, tail included. The mother that we saw a month ago was somewhere in the middle range, and heavier-looking than tonight's visitor.