Early Retirement Extreme Forums

After living in deep Scottish Countryside for over four years, I finally saw a live badger irl (sadly I had seen quite a few by the roadside cycling the country) for the first time, in the Glasgow city centre. It was making its way from a football court to the Clyde river. They way it sounded pounding against tarmac, it's a heavy creature.

In the past two or three weeks, I must have seen about ten foxes in various Glasgow neighbourhoods. Some of these might have been the same fox.

@theanimal, thank you for the recommendations! Those look great.

I was out in the yard having lunch with some friends, when the local clan of fairy wrens started hopping around in the shrubs close by. They're tiny little blue ping-pong balls on legs, and don't tend to hang around too close when they can help it.

I suggested that we stay quiet for a moment and see if we could see a reason why they were with us. About thirty seconds later, a sparrowhawk swooped in for an attempt at a kill. No luck for the poor hungry sparrowhawk, but we felt pretty lucky to have front-row seats for his performance.

Today I had listeners as I practiced my tin whistle, by our creek.
Two field hares were sitting next to me and listened briefly.
I spend a lot of time at his creek and have watched many birds, but hares have never come this close before. One hare was really sitting just under 3 meters next to me.

I could also closely observe two tree creeper birds, which skillfully ran up the tree trunks. They remind me of little mice, they are so tiny!

We've had a bout of really bad weather the last few weeks. On one hand I'm glad for the copious rains, because of draughts, on the other hand it's great to finally be out in the sun every day.

I was sketching in a friend's garden this morning when a redtailed hawk swooped into a nearby tree. The birds were alarm calling all around until it took off into the forest. After it was gone the birds went back to normal song within 2-3 minutes.

I wonder what's the hawk's experience, to be triggering the alarm wherever there are other birds in the vicinity.

Reminds me of the truck driver who was in fact a rain god in the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy book series. Wherever he went, rain followed him. No wonder he thought the world was a dreadful place where it just rains all the time!

I went backpacking alone recently in the Boulder Creek Wilderness in Oregon (the only humans I ran into were 2 sheriffs). Ticks were all over me! I've hardly ever seen a tick in my life before this trip.

At one point, I was laying in my tent during a lightning storm and feel a slight itch on my chest to discover a tick halfway lodged in my chest. It was hard to "feel one with nature" or to imagine my blood as a "giveaway" to these ticks constantly crawling from my shoes and up my legs and all around me, while I hiked along the trail.

At points it was pretty challenging to be present and not feel exasperated, anxious and constantly itchy. With this though, I could feel in a way the work the environment was doing on me.

Yikes! Sounds like someone was really tugging for your attention.

I went for a 6 mile forest walk, along a creek valley and then looping back through the uplands. I saw some edible plants, plantains and fiddleheads in the creek wetlands. I did not see edible plants in the upland area. There were a number of edible plants along a roadwalk to get back to my car. I did not harvest any, just identified them. The walk was a long a little used trail, not well maintained, and involved climbing over fallen trees and scrambling up and down ravine banks. I saw deer, hawks, raccoons, squirrels and chipmunks. Nothing unusual, but their behavior was much different than the ones living in my yard, the wilderness animals are much more cautious. There were some bugs but not too bad, I was prepared with long pants, long sleeve shirt, hat and headnet, which I did not need to use. I was walking most of the time without stopping. If I stopped for a break I would have been swarmed by deer flies, horse flies and mosquitos. No ticks this time despite a lot of bushwhacking.

Bicycle7 wrote: ↑

Tue May 30, 2023 3:15 pm

At points it was pretty challenging to be present and not feel exasperated, anxious and constantly itchy. With this though, I could feel in a way the work the environment was doing on me.

Unpleasant emotions (in my case allergies) collapses the complexity of the mind in order to focus on those emotions (in my case my head being full of snot). This makes it hard to see any beauty. Currently, the cottonwoods are blooming. It makes me wish they'd all burn down to the ground. If nothing else, those trees can forget about ever getting a hug from me.

@OutOfTheBlue- Thanks for that, you're getting me to think more, what have I been ignoring?

@sky- I noticed that at least for my recent trip in the wilderness, I'm not sure if I saw any mammals, though I see them in the city all the time and a recent trip to a wildlife preserve a few miles from town I spotted a coyote. The mammals probably saw me in the wilderness area though.

@Jacob- That's true for my experience, I could feel that collapsing of complexity at points. I found myself lamenting the fact that I was alone in the wilderness (a context suitable for me to work with ideas and reflections) but the only thing I wanted to think about was ticks and the negative emotions associated with it.

The large bullsnake that used to live in my barn is long gone and now we are overrun with bunnies.

I buy fly predators to keep barn flies to a minimum. For the first time ever, I had a noticeable population of fly predators before my first shipment of purchased ones arrived. I'm not sure why this happened or what I can do to help the fly predator population thrive but I hope they continue to take hold. The fly predators are tiny wasps that eat fly larvae and are much more effective than insecticides.

I went out yesterday with my daughter and a friend to pick morels in a burn from last year a little way’s outside of town. I've gone through many burns, mainly due to my work in forestry. So I was pleased to find that this burn was very unique in comparison to all of the others. The area had burned 19 years ago, killing off the black spruce (mature forest) and giving way to succession of new species: fireweed and grasses, then birch and aspen saplings. Last year a ground fire went through the area, killing off all the birch and aspen saplings in the area. It is unusual for areas to burn so closely within the same time period. Most of the burns that occur up here happen in spruce forests (the dominant mature forest in the state). There was an interesting contrast between the gray, weathered down spruce and the still standing aspen and birch. With their intact bark and branch systems, the aspens and birches seemed poised to leaf out any moment, but they will never leaf again.



The majority of the ground remains charred. There are patches of grass, lupine flowers, fireweed, morels and some other species that I am not familiar with.


Some of the downed spruce lay charred in place along the ground. The downed trees appeared intact, especially when viewed from above, but upon the slightest kick or touch they would turn to wood dust. Very cool!

The rabbits are out in force between 5a and 6a doing their r-selection thing. This mostly implies chasing each other around in circles which reminds me of humanity. The rabbits remain fearless---a few days ago, I almost stumbled walking into one. This also reminds me of humanity. Maybe the resident Cooper's hawks need to step it up a bit. They've been on and off over the past few years.

Bicycle7 wrote: ↑

Wed May 31, 2023 11:23 am

@Jacob- That's true for my experience, I could feel that collapsing of complexity at points. I found myself lamenting the fact that I was alone in the wilderness (a context suitable for me to work with ideas and reflections) but the only thing I wanted to think about was ticks and the negative emotions associated with it.

Ticks are not the end of the world. They can't poison you with diseases until they chew through your skin, which gives you many hours to extract them (if they're still flat and tiny, it means they haven't started drinking your blood, so they haven't gotten through the skin yet). Even if you don't catch them before they do, many of them do not carry diseases (it's heavily dependent on the region). And, even if you catch Lyme's Disease, it's often without long-term consequences - I've had it as a teenager, was pumped full of antibiotics, and the disease was gone a week later.

For foresters in Poland, Lyme's Disease is practically an occupational disease, and yet they live till old age in goo health. I think checking yourself for ticks after potential exposure is key for them, as well as getting vaccinated for encephalitis which ticks also carry.

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 12, 2023 12:55 pm

The rabbits are out in force between 5a and 6a doing their r-selection thing. This mostly implies chasing each other around in circles which reminds me of humanity. The rabbits remain fearless---a few days ago, I almost stumbled walking into one. This also reminds me of humanity. Maybe the resident Cooper's hawks need to step it up a bit. They've been on and off over the past few years.

I'd estimate I spook 10-20 rabbits a day on my bike ride home after the night shift, which is around that same time. I have also seen a fox on one ride but not any hawks. Do you have foxes in your area? I always assumed they were the primary rabbit predators in urban/suburban areas.

A pidgeon has nested on my balcony. After trying unsuccessfully to scare her and her boyfriend away she laid two eggs in a plant pot. I decided I couldn't commit pigeoncide so I left her to it and she just sits on them day and night. One egg has just hatched so there's a baby pigeon, an odd yellow looking thing which is firmly hidden away under mummy. Boyfriend seems to be loosing interest and has left her to it. I've left her a dish of water as it's so hot I don't want her to dehydrate. By an odd coincidence I saw a dead pidgeon on my walk today. Looks like it crashed landed and lost its head. The cycle of life [edited]

white belt wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 12, 2023 4:46 pm

Do you have foxes in your area?

I've never seen one around here. However, there is a decently sized population of coyotes living along the tracks and I have seen those.

@zbigi- Thanks for that perspective; as long as I'm careful, I probably won't end up transmitting a disease from a tick. That's wild to hear about foresters in Poland, are ticks more prevalent there?

@chenda- do you have any ideas what the "odd yellow looking thing" might be?

It's really remarkable the places that pigeons will nest! They're nature's weird little optimists. r/stupiddovenests is a delight.

chenda wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 12, 2023 5:46 pm

By an odd coincidence I saw a dead pidgeon on my walk today. Looks like it crashed landed and lost its head. The cycle of life.

This is usually a sign that a cat got it. They often eat the heads and nothing else.

This explain the cleanly decapitated bird heads I sometimes see lying around on sidewalks.