Rob,

At least you didn't pick up a bobcat. A number of years ago an employee at
Point Reyes picked up a "road kill" bobcat and put it on the back seat - no
bad, no newspaper. The animal came out of its auto induced knap in a not so
great mood and while the driver was traveling fairly fast down one of the
narrow winding roads of west Marin - the results, needless to say, weren't
pretty.

And aren't those goofy native chickens stupid? How do they survive?



Rob Conway
Newcastle, WA

robin_birder at hotmail.com





>From: "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous at msn.com>
>To: <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
>Subject: [Tweeters] The adventure of a live grouse in my car
>Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:50:51 -0800
>
>Well todays errands certainly turned out to be more exciting than I had
>planned. Along the side of the road was a brown lump, and I have long had
>the policy of investigating all road kills so I stopped and backed up. I
>thought it might be a road killed owl but it turned out to be a ruffed
>grouse, still warm. No apparent trauma, a nice specimen, so I lightly
>rolled
>it up in the newspaper I keep in the back of my car and continued into
>town.
>At the bank as I finished my transaction and got back into the car motion
>from behind scared me that I was being mugged. Instead it was the grouse,
>now fully alive and sitting in the middle of my backseat, bobbing its head
>and clucking. Bank parking lots are not much for grouse habitat so I drove
>the grouse out to a local park with better habitat. The grouse sat in the
>same place the whole trip, clucking softly. In the park I opened the back
>door expecting the grouse to immediately end this relationship. It stayed
>put so I opened the door on the other side. It was raining pretty good at
>this point so I got back into the drivers seat. The grouse sat, bobbing its
>head and clucking. I reached out to see if I could push the grouse out with
>my hand and the bobbing and clucking stopped and I got a good peck on the
>hand, which I quickly withdrew from range. Hmmmm. Monkeys are smarter than
>grouse, we are tool users. I went to the back of the car and rolled up
>some
>newspaper to extend my reach and used that to push the pecking grouse out
>of
>the car. It hopped down out of the car and I closed one back door and
>walked
>around to the other and closed it. Then I heard a familiar clucking sound
>from underneath the car, and sure enough the grouse had chosen to get out
>of
>the rain under the car. Sheesh. I thought if I started the car the noise
>would scare the grouse into the adjacent woods. No such luck. It was
>raining
>pretty thickly and of course I had left my rain gear at home. I yelled,
>stomped and kicked dirt at the grouse under the car. It was not so easily
>dissuaded. Or maybe it wanted another car ride? Finally I ventured into the
>wet brush, got a stick and poked the grouse out from under the car. As I
>jumped in to drive away the grouse hopped up on a fallen log next to the
>road and I came to the conclusion that if this grouse ran under the car
>again, it was obiously destined to be roadkill and who am I to mess with
>destiny? To my relief the grouse stayed on the log, bobbing and clucking as
>I drove away.
>
>Rob Sandelin
>Naturalist, Writer
>The Environmental Science School
>HYPERLINK
>"http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm"http://www.nonprofitpages.com/ni
>ca/SVE.htm
> ><((((>`..`..`...><((((>...`..`...><((((>.`..`...><((((>.`
>..`...><((((>.. ><((((>
>`..`.....`><((((>.`..`...><((((>.`..`...><((((>..`..`..
>.><((((>.. `..`....`..`...><((((>
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this outgoing message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.12/267 - Release Date: 2/22/2006
>


>_______________________________________________
>Tweeters mailing list
>Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters