Topic: Today was the killing fields on the way to work

[PatMan33]

Man I don't know what was going on earlier this morning but my drive into work today was like going through a morgue. It's not even the rut yet and the deer decided that today was the day they needed to run into traffic going ~80mph. I didn't hit anything but I counted 11 dead deer of all shapes and sized (and some as-of-yet undiscovered shapes) along the route. Never seen that before!

[sgore]

We live in a heavily wooded area, and deer are a common presence on the road.
I've had to maneuver around some,
but I've come across surprisingly few if any "deer hit by car" incidents myself.

Seen a lot of dead possums though.
Poor little guys.

[PatMan33]

feels.jpg

Opossums and groundhogs are not. very. intelligent. :[

[PatMan33]

A coworker of mine today discussed an old box truck that his family used to own. Somehow its design created a sort of vortex that drew nearby birds into the truck itself.

They called it "the bird slayer", which I think is just a great name. Apparently it had a very high kill count.

[PatMan33]

Lots of dead deer showing up now that the snow is melting. Dunno, hunting season later this year might not be so good. Lost a lot of good candidates to starvation thanks to the dense snow pack and the ice.

Shed hunting might be pretty decent though.

[PatMan33]

Happier story from work today.

I was walking down the block near the big parking garage and noticed a squirrel running around. Now, squirrels are a bit of a rarity in this city due to the number of predators and the lack of trees. So I generally notice them when they're out and about. We have a couple at a few of our properties that we've named and one of them is actually pretty cool and understands the concept of us feeding it without ripping our skin off as payment. So I am watching the squirrel wander down the recently-thawed bushes as I walk. Today was the first day in months that it was "warm" with a temperature of ~45 degrees. Real nice weather! No jacket today, just short sleeves and jeans. So I'm watching this squirrel and then get distracted by a pair of robins (which only just showed back up so I guess Spring is officially here!) that were jumping around also looking for some food in the newly exposed and thawed ground.

And then I notice the squirrel isn't around anymore. Weird.

So I keep walking because it probably wandered off under a car or something. Then I get up near the corner and I see a large amount of water flying about near a fountain that has been turned off for the Winter. That's weird. So as I get closer I see this drowned rat of a thing scurry out from under one of the nearby parked cars and sure enough it was my squirrel. His grey coat was all mussed and saturated and he looked positively pissed. He must have seen something in or near the fountain and slipped into the water. Made me laugh; thankfully it was a nice "warm" day so he would be able to dry off.

But yeah, that was a highlight of the day. Pretty good day!

[Great Distance]

I saw a deer on my way home from work. It was in a small park path in the middle of the capital city of Finland. So it was pretty special.