Category Archives: Critters

October 12, 2025 · 23:24

Nocturnal Visitor

The Forever Home came already equipped with a half dozen solar powered, motion activated security lights around the roofline. Last night I just happened to be wandering around a little after 4:00 (I’m an old dude with a history of kidney stones so I stay very well hydrated – you do the math!) when one of the lights outside in the back turned on.

I didn’t see anything out there and I wasn’t going to go get dressed to go out and investigate. Given the temps in the low 50’s, I wasn’t wandering out naked, either. So I was going to ignore it until a second light came on. I still didn’t see anything out there, so I made a note of the time to remind me to check the security cameras.

This is just after that first security light turned on – along the wall on the left you can see a pair of ***eyes*** strolling this way. Not that spooky, just what I expected. Possum? Raccoon? Something more domestic?

Three minutes later, just before the second security light activated on the right, the cat started investigating something around the treadmill that’s stored out on the porch. Big surprise!

It only took a couple minutes to see that the critter in question (I’m assuming it’s just the one, hard to tell with the low light, infrared images) is out there a couple of times a week. There’s nothing for it to eat other than bird seed, but if it should catch a rodent of some sort, so much the better.

Oh, and while I had seen a large owl perched out on the pergola at sunset, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard one. The ones in West Hills were quite noisy. Well, there were at least a couple hooting it up on Friday night, so that might be another hazard for the stray cat. One of those full sized Great Horned Owls will make a stray cat a meal in a heartbeat!

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September 22, 2025 · 23:22

Equinox Monster

In celebration of the equinox today, we had a visit from a monster!

The house’s outer defenses were holding and the vicious killer hadn’t yet made it into the interior to rip our throats out.

I cautiously approached the alien-like monstrosity, ready for it to fly off into my face and go for my eyes. (Honestly, if it had taken flight when I was getting close, I swear I would have screamed and cried and needed a change of underwear.)

The reality was that it was probably asleep. I did notice later in the day that it had moved to the screen on the next window over, but I never found a need to call 9-1-1 or the National Guard.

Is this the same one that we saw on the front lawn about a month ago? I have no idea, but I doubt it. I suspect it’s just a sign that these tiny killing critters are ever so slightly more common here than in Los Angeles.

 

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September 20, 2025 · 23:43

Two-Tone Squirrel

The pictures, when viewed in detail, show a slightly different picture (literally), but to the naked eye, the squirrel stealing bird food this morning seemed to be decidedly two-toned, with a light brown, almost “dirty blonde” coloration accompanied by a white collar around his neck and forward shoulders.

You can see the basic pattern as described in this thumbnail above, but if you click on it and view the full-sized picture, you’ll see a lot more detail that is lost at first. I particularly like the white polka dot or speckled pattern on the back 2/3 of its body.

Not the sharpest picture I’ve ever taken, but the only one where I caught it more head on, proving that it wasn’t eating the bird seed from the ground, but was instead filling his cheeks with it.

Hilarious. Then it got in trouble and pissed me off.

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September 7, 2025 · 23:47

New Little Lizard Friend

Being the desert and all, I was expecting more lizards up here than at our old houses in West Hills. God knows you can find enough pictures on her from the last ten years of both fence lizards, large, small, and tiny, and the occasional alligator lizard (good sized critters, especially the ones that came up through the toilets). But through the first six weeks, it’s been slim pickings.

When I was taking the trash bins out to the curb last Thursday evening, this tiny dude was chilling on the curb. I figure the west-facing concrete was probably still warm after sundown and it was sucking up every photon it could get.

It didn’t move until I got really close, then it scooted under that big bush. The markings are noticably different than all of those we had in West Hills – they were more scaly and “granulated” with the classic blue bellies and throats. While I didn’t get super close and I didn’t get to look at it at length, it seems that this one is more striped than spotted.

I’ll keep my eyes (and camera) open to watch for more of the area lizards and get more data.

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August 20, 2025 · 22:38

TEENSY TINY MONSTER!

This little dude was chilling in the astroturf just before sunset yesterday.

Maybe an inch long.

Remember to be grateful every day that they don’t grow to human-sized. They would rule the planet like xenomorphs or Predators, so fast, so viscious.

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August 18, 2025 · 23:05

Clear & A Billion-Trillion

Literally, not a cloud in the sky. Anywhere. And shades of blue that I never, ever saw in LA.

It’s definitely different up here in the High Desert, but we’re getting used to it. Mostly good stuff. While waiting to be seated for breakfast on Sunday, we saw an ambulance go buy, lights & siren blaring. It occurred to me that it was the first time I had seen anything like that in almost four weeks here. To my memory, I’ve only heard sirens out on the main road (a block away) twice. Between our two homes in LA for almost 35 years, it was a daily occurrence, or more. Granted, we lived near a couple of fire stations and a large hospital, but still…

The population up here is about 550,000 for Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, and the unincorporated areas like Oak Hills combined. I haven’t gathered the statistics or gone looking for them online, but it sure feels like it’s a lot less hectic and stressed.

The other thing you might notice is that the second hummingbird feeder is up. Hummer2 is active and getting traffic, sometimes at the same time as Hummer1. The most I’ve ever seen is four hummers out there flitting about and feeding at once, but I’m hoping that will grow.

No additional sighting of the owl there was out there at sunset a few days ago, and very few finches are around. A bunch of crows, some pigeons, but no hawks at all, which surprises me. We did see a huge turkey vulture circling a few hundred feet up, but it never came down closer.

Also no small critters seen at all. No squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, or gophers (thank god!!). Also no lizards at all, which I find very odd. We’re surrounded by open desert, have rocks and “desert landscaping” everywhere, and when we were house hunting there were plenty of places where I saw fence lizards, just like in LA. But here, not a single one yet.

We have plenty of black widows outside (it looks like the house has been empty and unoccupied for a while before we bought it, so there hasn’t been much of that light maintenance) but I’m mowing them down like waves of wheat, so they shouldn’t be a problem for long. And no snakes that I’ve seen, although I’m sure they’re out there in the more undeveloped, wilderness areas. I’ll keep an eye open for them if I go hiking or walking and I’ll leave them alone if they do the same for me.

Have I ever told “the snake story” here? Maybe another night…

I thought it was supposed to be up in triple digits this week, but today was lovely. Mid 80’s, toasty in the sun but wonderful in the shade with a nice breeze, keeping the wind chimes active outside my office. And that blue sky!

 

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August 17, 2025 · 22:30

INVADER!!!

I was working on unloading a bunch o’ things from the PODS unit and ended up in the back yard by the small pear tree.

I’m very excited by the expectation that we’ll actually be able to eat some of these pears in a couple of months.

I was admiring the incoming crop.

The pears are still a little on the small and hard side right now, but…

WAIT!! WHAT’S THAT??!! DO YOU SEE IT?

SOUND THE ALERT! We have an INVADER!!!

It would have taken to long to go get a shotgun (especially since I don’t own one) so instead I just flicked it into low Earth orbit. NO PEARS FOR YOU!

Don’t worry, it lived, flew off over the back wall and out into the tumbleweeds and dust to wait for its chance to come back when I’m not being ever vigilant.

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August 9, 2025 · 23:07

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One…

I think that in all of the chaos of the last six weeks, this particular bizarre incident of terror got completely overlooked. Boy, if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is!

Back on July 10th I we were in escrow, but still living in the old house in West Hills. The Long-Suffering Wife had left for the morning, I was down the hall in my work-from-home office, and the house was filled with boxes and stuff waiting to go into boxes.

I heard a crash of some sort from down the hall, in the kitchen or living room. Being alone in the house and the sound not being something like someone smashing in a door or window to force entry, I figured something had been piled up in an unstable manner and had crashed over to the floor. I would deal with it later.

Then came another bang. And another crash. I came to the conclusion that I was NOT alone in the house.

When I went to investigate, I found that the kitchen had been invaded by mourning doves.

At the moment I had no clue how they had gotten in. All doors and windows were closed. (Later, having reviewed the view from a NestCam, I came to the conclusion that they probably came down the chimney by accident. Drunk? Fermented berries? Or just stupid and clumsy? Both?)

This one was fairly calm. I put a towel over it, picked it up, took it outside, and let it go.

This one I found in the kitchen sink and I figured it would be a breeze to drop a towel over it, trap it in the sink, and repeat the take outside & release strategy.

WRONG!

I never did figure out what its major malfunction was, but I spent fifteen minutes chasing it around the kitchen before I finally got the drop on it. There was much panicked flying up into the eyes (mine) and flapping of wings in my face. I know that we’re in drastically different weight classes and that no one on the planet has ever been killed by a mourning dove, but there’s a first time for everything and I didn’t want it to be me with the funny headstone.

When I finally succeeded in getting it outside I realized that I was now twenty minutes late for a Zoom call with my boss, his boss, our banker, and multiple members of our Board. OOPS!

It’s not quite a “my dog ate my homework” moment, but I’m sure it wasn’t a story that was on anyone’s Bingo card that morning.

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August 2, 2025 · 22:22

Just Because They’re Colorful & Ornrey

A substantial chunk of our moving budget has been spent at one of the local UHaul locations (who have been wonderful, to be clear) and in the office there they have these two large, colorful, and loud birds. Macaws?

Today when I was dropping off the latest truck that I finished unloading last night, the two of them were out of their cages and wandering loose.

I wouldn’t describe either as “calm,” but at least the green one kept its distance for the most part and minded its own business.

The red dude literally knocked over a full sized broom that had been left leaning against the wall, then picked it up in its beak and started trying to chase me around with it. As much as I didn’t have “being beaten in the shins by a macaw with a broom” on today’s bingo card, I stood my ground and got glared at for my trouble.

They were gorgous. I went home and spent a very decent chunk of the day sitting on my ass and trying to recover a bit instead of unloading and unpacking and trying to bring order out of chaos. I remain confident that the chaos will still be there tomorrow. I do not expect the house elves to sort it all out for me while I sleep tonight.

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July 8, 2025 · 23:08

Forever Home – July 08th

I will miss my lizards at the Forever Home, but just as when we moved from the Pomelo house to here seven years ago and I missed my Pomelo lizards (search for “Freds”), this home had plenty of its own (“Bubbas”). We’re moving to the freakin’ desert – there will be other lizards, I’m confident.

I haven’t seen any yet at the Forever Home, but we were only there for less than an hour, and I was mostly indoors looking at the house, with just a quick glance at the yards. Tomorrow we’re going back for the property inspections, so I’ll have a chance to keep an eye out.

I have faith.

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