Doc gets a nature lesson

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Wednesday, May 19. 2010

Doc gets a nature lesson

I have a small, humble art gallery online. In it, I have a "Fun With Nature" category, full of pictures of animals acting silly and all the rest.

Among the pictures is this one, with my caption:

Idiocy knows no bounds

Yep, just another dumb animal doing something completely incomprehensible to humans.

All of which shows how much I know.

H/T: Theo

Posted by Dr. Mercury in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 15:53 | Comments (16) | Trackback (1)

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Doc's Videos, Etc
Videos: The Deafening Silence � My favorite 'airline disaster' episode Men & Women of Film � A Hollywood collageTrain Story with a Twist(er) � Kids! RC Madness � Three R/C airplane vids Happy Guy Fawkes Day � How this day has been spun around

Weblog: Maggie's Farm
Tracked: Jun 10, 10:38

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Dr. Merc ... That's a lovely, healthy red fox -- and what a gorgeous tail. There's a coon cat in our neighborhood with a tail like that, and I admire it, and him, every time he strolls by.

Marianne

#1 Marianne Matthews on 2010-05-19 15:54 (Reply)

As soon as I saw your photos, I thought it was probably a spy hop based on the sound of something tasty under the snow. Canids and I imagine cats also spy hop in other settings, such as a grassy field where they can hear prey but may not see it. Learned this from National Geographic.

#2 Geoff Brown on 2010-05-19 15:54 (Reply)

MM - I had the same thought. For a snowbound land, it looked like the pickings were ripe.

GB - I thought it was the depth that was particularly impressive, and that the leap was so accurate that he could get his jaws around something while essentially blind was doubly so -- especially something desperate to get away. Quite the feat.

#3 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-05-19 16:04 (Reply)

And no doubt a mouthful of snow to go with the morsel. I've been face-first into snow but never with any accuracy.

#3.1 Geoff Brown on 2010-05-19 16:50 (Reply)

Oh, I think you sell yourself short, good friend. I'm sure anyone who saw you in the act would agree that you planted your face in that snowbank with extreme accuracy. Take credit where credit is due!

#3.1.1 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-05-19 16:54 (Reply)

I once saw a coyote doing the same thing in tall grass in Montana.
I know fox do it, but have never seen it. Mouse-hunting.

#4 Bird Dog on 2010-05-19 17:29 (Reply)

I've got to cut down the number of nature shows I watch as I knew what he was up to before I watched the video. Polar bears do a variation, too.

#5 Retread on 2010-05-19 18:23 (Reply)

Cool! My supposed shepherd-huskie mix (looks like wolf so we make her wear a collar that says "I AM A DOG") does a similar dive looking for mice under the snow. But not so successfully. There's usually a lot of scrabbbling and digging before the critter gets caught.

And I enjoyed your fun with nature pix, especially the cat and eagle one (I did NOT click on the "Porn for Women" as I assume it was just excerpts from that book of pictures of handsome men vacuuming and staring soulfully into the girl's eyes saying "Eat some more of this chocolate cake, you look too thin...)

#6 retriever on 2010-05-19 19:02 (Reply)

Ret - The collar story is great. Yes, the 'Porn For Women' is that classic, and thanks for saving the bandwidth by not clicking, thereby lowering the world's energy needs and reducing global warming. It all adds up. As for the pic of the cat and eagle, it's no accident it's the big wrap-up for the page. I laugh every time I look at it. That poor friggin' cat. You can see the hesitancy written all over it. But you sure don't see any in the eagle. I think it's thinking of one thing, and one thing alone:

Body mass.

#7 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-05-19 19:12 (Reply)

What a lovely fox!

My beloved Chow Chow used the exact same moves to snag voles and mice in our backyard. She was EXPERT at this.

She also befriended our resident foxes. When she finally passed away they would sneak around our yard in search of her. After we got a new pup (not a chow this time) one came into the yard to try to get him to play - he sat, terrified and barking. The fox stole his ball and ran around with it!

#8 BlackOrchid on 2010-05-19 22:05 (Reply)

BO - "The fox stole his ball and ran around with it!"

That little rascal sounds clever as a fox! And what a great scene that must have been. Wolves and coyotes get all the press, but foxes are just as wily and admirable.

#9 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-05-19 23:16 (Reply)

Great job mouse hunting. Very impressive.

#10 Cilla Mitchell, Galveston Texas (Link) on 2010-05-20 07:09 (Reply)

Howdy Doc M
I was just visiting your main site and it suggested starting a dialog this way. If you're in the mood and have time, I'd love to trade comments via email. I'd also love to know how to get Maggie to draft me, or at least offer an occasional article.

#11 Geoff Brown on 2010-05-20 16:29 (Reply)

Hi - Thanks for the post. I especially want to share this one with my grandkids - learn to be a close observer of the whole story and not just one point of view. Nice.

This may not be the place to ask but I wonder if it's okay to use the pictures from your gallery to send my grandkids in the mail or post on a private blog I'm starting just for them? I went there and you have a lot of great pictures. Thanks for sharing.

#12 Kathteach on 2010-05-20 17:00 (Reply)

GB - Will contact you in a bit.

Kath - Nice comments. That was, indeed, the moral of the story, and I'm not hesitant to throw myself out there to play the part of the fool if the message gets across.

And you are certainly welcome to grab whatever pics you want. I'd only ask that you actually download them and then post them on your own site, rather than using the direct link to mine. And thanks for the compliment. A lot of work's gone into that baby. Glad you enjoyed.

#13 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-05-20 17:39 (Reply)

"Idiocy knows no bounds"

Not quite, of course. In our area the foxes are hunting voles, a small black/brown mouse with no tail. The voles are always under something, leaves and grass in warm weather and snow in winter. Tunneling and looking for food. Which means they chew off perennials at ground level and girdle trees - a real problem. Now imagine you could feed yourself by hunting something as fast as a mouse, but where you never see your prey. Just dive face first and come up chicken mcnuggets. Quite a trick, I think.

#14 Colorado on 2010-05-20 22:57 (Reply)

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Wednesday, May 19. 2010

Doc gets a nature lesson