Showing posts with label wild creatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wild creatures. Show all posts

Wild creatures among us: Bobcat

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Photo by Gary Kramer , U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
via Wikimedia Commons

By Diane Hettrick

I commuted downtown on the bus for several years (2001-2005). At the neighborhood bus stop, I had a chance to meet and talk to neighbors I would not normally see.

One of these neighbors was new in the neighborhood. She had bought a new home on a small lot dug into a wooded hillside.

It snowed that year - not much - but it stayed on the ground for a while.

This neighbor told me that she had seen big paw prints in the snow on her deck - they looked like cat prints but were twice as big. We speculated, but couldn't figure out what it might be.

Then a few days later, she reported that she had seen the mystery animal and that it was a huge cat. Bigger than any cat she had ever seen, she said.

Could it be a Maine Coon Cat? I asked. They are very big.

No, she said. My own cats are very large and this cat was half again as big as they are. Beside, her cats were inside, freaking out at this monster cat on the deck.

She caught a glimpse of it one more time. The snow melted, and she didn't see it again.

Time passed. I remembered her story but didn't quite know what to think about it.

Then I stumbled across a local professor who was studying lynx in Washington forests and told him my story.

Aaron Wirsing, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) at the University of Washington, told me:

I suspect that your neighbor spied a bobcat (Lynx rufus). Bobcats are closely related to lynx but are able to use a wide variety of habitats, including city suburbs. They typically weigh about 25 pounds and have paws that are about twice the size of those of a domestic cat. 
I’ve been informed that there are quite a few bobcats in the greater Seattle area. Congratulations to your neighbor on a neat sighting, and thanks for the inquiry!

Mystery solved.

I have only heard one other bobcat story. Early in 2014, a resident of Innis Arden told her neighbors that she had seen a large cat in a tree. She searched the internet and came to the conclusion that she had seen a bobcat. Looks like she was right.



Read more...

Wild Creatures among us: Deer

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Deer in Shorewood Hills 2014
Photo by Ed Neff

By Diane Hettrick

When we moved in to Shoreline 35 years ago, our neighbors were quick to inform us that there were deer living in the very large wooded tract down the highway. 

I was skeptical. After all, Shoreline was an urban area, even then. But when the tract was clear-cut to build some 26 apartment buildings, I half-expected to see deer bounding through the neighborhood. 

It didn’t happen and I figured it was an urban myth.

This deer was in Innis Arden in 2013

Fast forward half a dozen years. My husband came home from work and said that he saw a large deer, walking casually down 10th NE toward North City School in the middle of the afternoon. I waited to hear other reports, but he was apparently the only one who saw it.

It was many more years before I started hearing more deer stories. There was a terrified deer widely reported to be crashing around Mountlake Terrace. A man travelling Bothell Way told the Lake Forest Park police that he collided with a deer. The deer was not killed and police noted that the front end damage to the car was consistent with hitting a deer.

2011 on 21st NE in Shoreline, near Lake Forest Park

Then, in the coyote controversy in Lake Forest Park, residents there started talking about their deer. Apparently there was more than one group, living quietly in the green spaces and ravines of Lake Forest Park. They were appreciated by the residents, who generally kept very quiet about their presence.

Finally, one of my contributors sent me a photo. He lives on the border of Shoreline and Lake Forest Park and had seen deer in his yard on more than one occasion.

In  back yard near a ravine in The Highlands 2014
Photo by Frank Fox

I started looking at all large, green spaces suspiciously. I checked with a friend in The Highlands, which seemed like a perfect place for deer. She knows many of her neighbors and had never heard stories about deer. I checked with people in the vicinity of Shoreline Community College and Shoreview Park, with no luck.

Just as I had decided that the east side had all the deer, a contributor in Shorewood Hills – a small neighborhood off Innis Arden Way – took a photo of two deer calmly munching on his neighbor’s tulips. The neighbor’s home borders a ravine in The Highlands. Bingo! The deer returned a few days later for more tulips, and a photo op, and haven’t been seen since. But now I am waiting for someone to send a photo from Shoreview Park or Boeing Creek Park.

2014 Shorewood Hills
Photo by Ed Neff

As for the deer my husband saw – quite recently friends were returning home via 15th NE. They turned on 180th, and as they turned, they saw a deer, sauntering northwards in front of St. Mark’s church and school. This was only five blocks east of where my husband saw his deer so many years ago.

I thought there must be a ravine or green belt where they lived. I was curious enough to go drive around north of St. Marks and north of 10th NE. I saw neighborhoods I didn't know existed, but the lots were city-sized, with no green belt or ravines. I can't imagine where the deer were headed.

I'll just have to wait for the next photo to come in.




Read more...

Wild creatures among us: Coyotes

Sunday, March 1, 2015

"I sat in a living room and heard the coyotes howl outside"
Photo courtesy State Fish and Wildlife
Photo by Ty Smedes

By Diane Hettrick

I have been collecting stories and photos for several years about the wild creatures which live among us in Shoreline and Lake Forest Park. Even though I have lived here for 35 years, I was unaware of most of them until I started the Shoreline Area News.

I am a storyteller, not a wildlife expert. The go-to guys for information on wild animals are the people at the State Fish and Wildlife.  

Coyotes have recently been spotted walking down streets in the Echo Lake neighborhood mid-day, so they seem like a good place to start.

I lived here for twenty years before I found out my home is within a block of a coyote den, which has probably been in use for decades. I wish I had known. I would never have installed a cat door. Looking back, I am certain that I have lost at least two young cats to the coyotes. The kitties were loved, sweet, and trusting. It never occurred to them that anything would hurt them.

For the past decade my cats have come from a feral colony – they are raised by their mothers to be very wary of coyotes - but I still don't let them out at night.

Coyote in Lake Forest Park green space
Photo by Sara Lorimer

I know where four dens are and there are certainly many, many more. Three are in very large green spaces. The fourth is somewhere in a narrow band of green hillside. I think that any green space can support a den. They do seem to favor areas among trees or shrubbery.

I have sat in a home at dusk and heard them howling outside. It’s a primal sound.

According to the information from the local Fish and Wildlife guy I heard speak in LFP, coyotes mate for life. The cubs are born in the early spring (about now). The previous year’s cubs stay with the parents for an entire year, helping to hunt for food for the family. The next year when new cubs are born, the 2 year olds leave to find their own mates and own place.

That’s when you see them walking down the streets. Fish and Wildlife said that coyotes are not nocturnal by nature, but learn to live that way to coexist with humans.

Adolescent coyote taking a nap at Paramount Park
Photo by Janet Way

None of them are afraid of humans. One source said that when you are confronted by a coyote you are supposed to make yourself as big and as loud as possible and scare them off. Most people either freeze or go for their cameras.

Encounters are usually in the small hours of the morning. My neighbor used to leave for work at 3am. She was quite startled to see a coyote in her driveway, not ten feet from her. She froze and the coyote decided to leave. I heard similar stories from other people who were regularly out in the middle of the night.

The key to keeping coyotes out of your yard is to avoid feeding them. If you have pets or feral cats that you are feeding outside, try to pick the food up before dark. Don’t let your cats and small dogs out at night.

Even though it is allowed, do not put meat in your compost. One of my contacts found that out the hard way. He put a lot of rotten meat in plastic buckets in his back yard (no, I don’t know why). He put large, heavy, flat rocks on top but the coyotes got into it and ate all the meat. He doesn’t do that any more.

He says he sees coyotes in his yard all the time.  “I have seen them on my roof, or in the trees staring down - it looks like they have the ability to climb very well.”

One summer evening he was gardening late, around 9:30pm.  

“I heard the next door neighbor dogs barking and then I heard some noises behind the flower bushes. It's kind of dark so I tried to peer through the bushes to see what is behind. Then I see at least 2 coyotes staring at me from behind the bushes. It appeared that they were chased down by the nextdoor dogs (big dogs) so they ran onto my side. I backed out to retrieve some yard tools to defend myself in case they attacked. At that point, the coyotes ran through my yard to the next door yard again and disappeared with the next door neighbor dogs chasing them.”  

There was a huge controversy in Lake Forest Park a few years ago when a pack of coyotes killed a sheep (yes, there are several people in LFP who have sheep). The city called in Fish and Wildlife which said that coyotes that attack are under an automatic death sentence.

Sharpshooters identified the pack and spent several nights in back yards with rifles trying to get the coyotes to come within shooting range. Agents said they have a number of whistles that replicate animal sounds but none of them attracted the coyotes. Finally they sounded the “wounded kitten” whistle and the coyote came running.

The Lake Forest Park situation was worse than normal because a resident was feeding the coyotes – leaving big bags of open dog food for them. This confirms humans as a food source, makes the coyotes even less afraid of humans, and may serve to increase the population.

The coyotes have been here long before people and for the most part have lived quietly among us.. They serve a purpose by keeping the rodent population in check. The key is to avoid feeding them pet food – and pets.


Read more...

New neighbor: Kermit moves in to Echo Lake back yard

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A family in the Echo Lake neighborhood of Shoreline discovered a new neighbor in their back yard - a tiny tree frog.

Look closely at the photo.


Having trouble seeing him?  Try the next shot.


Nope.  That's worse.  He looks like a leaf.  Let's go in for a close-up.


He still looks like a leaf.  Hope it fools the cat.

Read more...
ShorelineAreaNews.com
Facebook: Shoreline Area News
Twitter: @ShorelineArea
Daily Email edition (don't forget to respond to the Follow.it email)

  © Blogger template The Professional Template II by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP