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| Nutria on edge of our pond this evening |
We have a nutria living on our front pond. Two days ago, with binoculars, I was watching him eat on the pond edge when a mallard duck landed. She preened herself on a pond edge rock. Suddenly the nutria ran at the duck. The duck took flight by swimming away. About 1/4 way across the pond, the nutria caught up. Only when the nutria tried to bite the duck's tail, did the duck fly away. (Nutria are supposed to be herbivores. Ours appears to be pretty territorial. Either that or he tired of his vegetarian fare and thought he would try duck.)
This week there have been two, day time, cougar sightings and 3 sheep killed by cougars within a couple miles of my house.
Then yesterday I spotted Trask proudly prancing with a large, white, fuzzy object in his mouth. It turned out to be the very fresh, back fur, front legs and head of what looked like a domestic rabbit. After relieving Trask of his prize, I was speculating where he could have gotten it. Dave commented that earlier he had watched two hawks and a bald eagle fighting in the air. One of them was carrying a large white animal.
What I figure happened is that our nutria chased away a rabbit that had escaped from a neighbor's hutch and came for a drink in "his" pond. The cougar then caught the rabbit. It skinned it and feasted on the hind quarters and organs. The bald eagle spotted the rabbit remains, swooped down and, carried it aloft only to be attacked by the pair of red tail hawks living on our ridge, A fight ensued and the rabbit forequarters were dropped into our yard - much to the delight of Trask! I then swapped Trask a chunk of cheese for the rabbit. I double bagged it and not wanting to attract the cougar by throwing it up into the woods, headed for town. (Well, maybe the nutria part of the rabbit saga is a bit far fetched, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was spot-on with the rest of the story). To add to the sage: I bet any Safeway dumpster divers had a few questions of their own last night.