Subject: [SPAM] RE: [Tweeters] The adventure of a live grouse in my car
Date: Feb 22 17:49:51 2006
From: Dennis Rockwell - denrockwell at surfbest.net


In the early 1970's I was living and working (cop & ambulance operator) in
Echo, Oregon. One of the local farmers encountered a badger out in one of
his fields, clubbed it with a wrench and figuring he'd killed it, threw it
in the back of his pickup, planning to skin it back at the homestead. He
parked in his garage, put the door down & only then discovered that the
badger not only wasn't dead, but wasn't pleased. The farmer spent more
three hours on top of his pickup waiting for his wife to come home and open
the garage door again. The badger spent those three hours daring the farmer
to come down and try that wrench trick again. The badger escaped and the
farmer's wife repeated that story for the rest of her life.

Dennis Rockwell
Kennewick, WA
denrockwell at surfbest.net



----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Conway" <robin_birder at hotmail.com>
To: <floriferous at msn.com>; <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 4:02 PM
Subject: [SPAM] RE: [Tweeters] The adventure of a live grouse in my car


> 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
>> ><((((?>`?..?`?..?`?...><((((?>...?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`
>>?..?`?...><((((?>?.. ><((((?>
>>?`?..?`?...?..?`><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>.?`?..?`?...><((((?>..?`?..?`?..
>>.><((((?>?.. ?`?..?`?....?`?..?`?...><((((?>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
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>>
>
>
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>
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