Life, Death and Food in the Heart of the Wild Kingdom

Animal path from
the orchard

What goings-on out there on the evening of the 7-7!  Outrageous animal noises in the night, they were all activated.

Well the orchard is in somewhat full swing for not getting any water or much in the way of tending.  It's Animals Take All out there.  I can appreciate how far apart the water sources are and always put some out for them in various spots.  

Last night just as the light was turning golden at sunset, 2 good looking bucks with big racks were making their way to the orchard for dinner.  I startled them in there the evening before on a walk in the pond bed.  They've been hanging out for awhile.  I hope they are both still hanging out....  Beautiful antlers on those creatures, they are magnificent.  Ridiculous that they should be scared of me.

Okay so as background to last night, a few weeks ago I heard these noises coming from the orchard, around 5 am just as it was getting light.  I didn't know what the heck it could be, it sounded like growling, or gobbling, or animals fighting. It was obviously the bear, but what he could be doing to be making such a sustained ruckus I had no clue.  

So I bolted out of bed and started to go down there but then thought better of it in case he was gobbling fruit and decided to get territorial.  He was making so much noise there was no way he could hear me coming.

New baby cats

En route, as the sounds were not ceasing, I switched into Fairy Godmother mode and announced my presence "Good Morning!  Good Morning!" which seemed to disperse the activity and whoever it was ran off and I didn't bother them further.  Neither did I see who it was or what was going on down there.

Well I just assumed he was eating but it did sound like growling and fighting too.

It's been pretty quiet since then.  I had to bring home some cats from the Resource Center when I left my job there, a mom and 4 growing kittens... That usually stirs things up in the animal world, but so far it's gone pretty well.  I'm not going to tell you how many cats I now have.

Shortly before that I lost my most beloved Amon Ra, likely to a predator.

The Much Beloved Amon Ra my sunshine cat,
"Pharaoh", "Curly"

Hard to say if it was the Maha, there are many things out here in the night that like to eat cats.  It's terrible to lose them like that however.

Some people might disagree with me but I give my cats full freedom to be cats.  They have their own door and many windows to go in and out of at will.  They hunt, they stay out all night if they want to, and then they come in and clean their burrs out of their furs on my bed.

Oh I love my cats.  I digress.

So the Maha has been pretty quiet.  Well he was certainly around on the night of 7/7.  I was just getting ready for bed around 11-ish, bedroom light still on, when I heard these horrible sounds outside my bedroom window coming directly from the woods behind my back yard where there is dense forest.

My bedrooom windows facing the
woods beyond the back yard

It sounded like a man staggering and wailing as if he'd been stabbed, then fell to the ground.  Most definitely it was a death wail of a large animal.  And I immediately called out:

"WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE!!!"   

Not that I expected an answer... 

So I listened for a while, expecting to hear sounds like chomp chomp (which I did not hear), or something being dragged and then covered with leaves, which I did hear.

I expected that, it's called a kill cache.  It's what they do when they don't eat it all. In this case I probably spooked him off a bit.

It was freaky.  I was wide awake after that so went up to the rooftop to watch the stars and have a puff.  Also because I knew he was around, I wanted to make sure all my cats had a chance to come in if they wanted to, or move to a safe place in the barn lest the Maha decide to stroll through the yard - had I turned the lights off and immediately gone to bed, he may have.  This way he had to wait.  I'm sure what he was waiting for was to eat his dinner in peace, "Go to bed already Krissy Lou!"

And all the dogs in the distance went nutty with that death wail. I heard from a nearby friend that her dogs were all stirred up that night too, acting up at any little thing.

Then later that night, it must have been 4 o'clock, just getting light, I again heard that same kind of growling gobbling bear ruckus but this time at close range, down by my little shade cloth garden area and the big pine trees that I can see from my loft bed window.  It was still dark so I couldn't see any animal forms.

It was a terrible noise, very ferocious sounding.  And then I heard the grappling of big cat claws on the pine tree.  Going up or moving around in increments it sounded like.  Again I bellowed out the window:


 "WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE!!! STOP IT! KNOCK IT OFF!!!!" and various other choice things.

I keep this little hand crank flashlight on my window sill, it makes

The view of the tree from my loft

an awful mechanical whizzing noise when cranked, and the light comes on.  So I cranked it up into high gear -- and immediately started to hear this pitiful wailing.

 "Aaah, aaaah, aaaah!!" he wailed, and continued to wail as he ran off, somewhat reluctantly I think, but still he continued to run away, wailing all the while into the distance.

Well I guess he didn't like the sound of that...  Wow what impact!! And from my bedroom window too.

So then I continued to listen for more movement as I was sure there was still an animal in the tree.  Shortly after the bear ran off I again heard loud cat claw noises on the tree, not delicate little kitty paws scratching to come down 20 feet.

Standing at the base of the pine tree,
looking towards my window

No, it was 'claw claw claw', then a thud of something landing that I could hear from my bedroom window even though the ground there had a thick layer of pine needles.

After the thud of impact I heard feet hit the earth again in what sounded like a bound, then a few moments later scratching sounds in the dry leaves and turf.

Forest behind my back yard

Once daylight broke I was ever so curious as to what went on out there.  I peered into the forest, then later in the day went back there -- amidst way too much poison oak for my liking -- and looked a little bit around.  Not too much.  He wouldn't like it if he knew I was back there by his food.  We don't want him coming to my new kitten buffet for appetizers.

I saw nothing back there so went to the big pine tree.  There I found what could be fresh lion claw scratches, not too far up.  It's certainly plausible.

It wasn't clear to me if bears and mountain lions get along -- or not, so I googled it for more info.

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/11/01/mountain-lions-versus-black-bears/

 Apparently bears have been known to take a lion's kill.  I bet they don't like that.  It could be the bear came across the lion near his kill, and was trying to do just that.  But were they having a food fight in the orchard the other morning too???  Or is it antagonistic enough for them to just cross paths.  The mysterious ways of animals, Lord have mercy!

Well, that bear was not happy when he ran off, crying like a big ol' baby.  Look what he's done to my
favorite plum tree.  We are hoping he leaves the front yard peach tree alone.

That is the animal report.  All stirred up.

Don't step in the bear poop.