[Malankazooie]

Porcupine here. Have had to use pliers to extract quills from my dog's muzzle.

Also, skunks are nocturnal and are very people shy, so it's unlikly you will see them unless you just so happen to be lucky to catch them waddling along in the night. They will nest down under houses and porches though and you can happen upon them if you crawl under there during daylight. Their scent glands aren't hermetically sealed, so you will get a waft of their scent even if they haven't triggered the spray for defense purposes. And the scent, being a strong as it is, is impossible to miss. Raccoon are nocturnal and are just wrong and bad and destructive.They have people hands and will destroy the hell out of shit. I had a raccoon on my deck one night and he was begging me for a showdown. A big fucker and he started making this loud hissing sound when I opened the sliding door. I didn't want any part of him. I didn't have anything he would be interested in on my deck, so I chalked it up he was just doing reconnaissance, didn't find anything and would move on, so I just left him alone and peeked out the window to make sure he went on his way.

[amphibian]

The picture upload mechanism isn't working for me on mobile, but I have a picture of a skunk about six feet away from me (taken after it was much closer than that to me). This was last Friday. Cute skunk too.

It was broad day as in 9:15 am (what the photo information says) and the skunk was happily looking around the yard before toodling off. I could not detect any scent whatsoever, yet the dogs did smell a little where it had tried to claw under a fence.

I think you're overestimating how strong a skunk scent is for the close encounter that isn't a threatening one.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 12 August 2020 - 05:35 PM

[Slow Ben]

Abyss, on 12 August 2020 - 03:31 PM, said:

I live maybe 1km from full 'downtown' in a city of a million+, and routinely see racoons, rabbits, skunks, occasionally a fox.

Funnily enough, a raccoon actually walked onto the porch next door to me at the same house as the skunk incident.'

And this was "in town", so thats not very common.

[Abyss]

We get racoons all year except the deep of winter. Garbage and recycling, balconies and rooftops that are near trees, you name it, the buggers are into it.
Some of them are fearless . I stepped out of the house once and found a huge one trying to open our 'organics' green bin. It was like watching a sumo wrestler trying to pull the sunroof off of a subcompact car. It looked at me, less than 2 meters away, completely disinterested and went back to what it was doing. When it looked like it was going to succeed i yelled at it, stomped, waved my hands. It gave precisely zero racoonfucks. I scared it off by triggering a car alarm and even then it just looked annoyed.

[Slow Ben]

Damn I’m an idiot. We get raccoons constantly.

Fox. A fox walked onto the porch, which is uncommon.

[Mezla PigDog]

I'm unhealthily impressed by this. I think I would lose my mind if I saw a raccoon. I'm trying to think of anything we have equivalent to show off with but I'm coming up short. Badgers? Hedgehogs? Foxes are nothing special here.

[QuickTidal]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

I'm unhealthily impressed by this. I think I would lose my mind if I saw a raccoon. I'm trying to think of anything we have equivalent to show off with but I'm coming up short. Badgers? Hedgehogs? Foxes are nothing special here.

They hang out in families and tag team the green bins here. It's quite impressive. Little gangs of masked vigilante garbage thieves. You'd love it here!

[Malankazooie]

Fox will become very comfortable around people. I used to work at a golf course and I would drive around the course to check on pace of play. I would see fox jump into golf carts while the humans were on the putting green and steal sack lunches from the golf carts. It didn't help that some of the humans would throw bits of their lunch or snacks to the fox at other times, which made the fox the opportunistic lunch stealing thieves they would become. The head golf pro had the maintenance staff put up signs to stop feeding the foxes because they were becoming a nuisance.

You won't see skunk doing that because you can't golf at night, and skunks would rather dig around for grubs and insects. They don't much tolerate people. But you will smell them as they make their ghostly way through your area. That's how you know skunks are around.

[Mezla PigDog]

Are black squirrels impressive? We have them in the back garden. They are a genetic variant of the grey squirrel and only live in this part of England.

[amphibian]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:44 PM, said:

Are black squirrels impressive? We have them in the back garden. They are a genetic variant of the grey squirrel and only live in this part of England.

Yes, absolutely impressive. A friend has two albino squirrels in her backyard now and it's her favorite thing about that yard. Black (melanistic) squirrels are rarer, I think.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 12 August 2020 - 08:46 PM

[Gust Hubb]

Wife just tested positive for COVID after 2 prior tests were negative and her pneumonia wouldn't go away with antibiotics. I gather testing from Quest is really poor (high false negative rate) which makes me wonder if I had it when I was tested negative earlier last month.

This whole year is seriously fucked up.

[Primateus]

Messing with my groove just a bit.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

They’ve fucked the Avatar last air bender remake so badly the creators walked away. It could have been great and led to an entire great franchise and they killed it. Even if it happens now we know that it goes against everything that made the original great.

I know there are real problems around, I’ve got some that are too real to post online, so I’m bitching about children’s television instead.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 12 August 2020 - 07:27 PM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

I'm unhealthily impressed by this. I think I would lose my mind if I saw a raccoon. I'm trying to think of anything we have equivalent to show off with but I'm coming up short. Badgers? Hedgehogs? Foxes are nothing special here.

They hang out in families and tag team the green bins here. It's quite impressive. Little gangs of masked vigilante garbage thieves. You'd love it here!

The little gangs of them are hysterical, and tend to be less confrontational than the 'lone wolves'. A mum raccoon likes to bring her babies to hang out in the sun on our balcony a few times every summer. It's damn cute. Except for the raccoon shit.

Malankazooie, on 12 August 2020 - 07:30 PM, said:

...You won't see skunk doing that because you can't golf at night, and skunks would rather dig around for grubs and insects. They don't much tolerate people. But you will smell them as they make their ghostly way through your area. That's how you know skunks are around.

Usually.

Then there are the less smelly or less windward ones that just casually walk pat you late at night. I have had lesser reactions to sharks while diving.

amphibian, on 12 August 2020 - 08:45 PM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:44 PM, said:

Are black squirrels impressive? We have them in the back garden. They are a genetic variant of the grey squirrel and only live in this part of England.

Yes, absolutely impressive. A friend has two albino squirrels in her backyard now and it's her favorite thing about that yard. Black (melanistic) squirrels are rarer, I think.

Really? They're all over the place here and i thought we got them from England in the first place.

Now tuxedo squirrels, THOSE are cool. We had a family around here for a while and the birdwatcher types were losing their birdshit.

We also had a family of - dare i say it - mutants who were black with awesome red/brown tails. They were assholes, but nice to look at.

[Abyss]

Gust Hubb, on 12 August 2020 - 09:25 PM, said:

Wife just tested positive for COVID after 2 prior tests were negative and her pneumonia wouldn't go away with antibiotics. I gather testing from Quest is really poor (high false negative rate) which makes me wonder if I had it when I was tested negative earlier last month.

This whole year is seriously fucked up.

Crap Gust. Stay calm.

[Gust Hubb]

Abyss, on 13 August 2020 - 03:34 AM, said:

Gust Hubb, on 12 August 2020 - 09:25 PM, said:

Wife just tested positive for COVID after 2 prior tests were negative and her pneumonia wouldn't go away with antibiotics. I gather testing from Quest is really poor (high false negative rate) which makes me wonder if I had it when I was tested negative earlier last month.

This whole year is seriously fucked up.

Crap Gust. Stay calm.

Not really worried yet. She seems to have flu level pneumonia, but not anywhere close to hospitalization. I think it will be fine. Just another crappy thing about this year.

[Lady Bliss]

No offense anyone, but English mothers at supper time..._mum has been happily boiling meat and veg for hours that I’m going to have to choke down.

[King Lear]

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

I'm unhealthily impressed by this. I think I would lose my mind if I saw a raccoon. I'm trying to think of anything we have equivalent to show off with but I'm coming up short. Badgers? Hedgehogs? Foxes are nothing special here.

I did lose it when I saw my first (and currently only) raccoon. It was jogging across the road like 'get out of my way'. I would love to see a badger. And a bear.

I nearly got to see a tornado a little while ago but it missed us. I guess 'see' isn't quite the right word, since I believe you're supposed to lurk somewhere without windows or whatever.

[Abyss]

Lady Bliss, on 14 August 2020 - 12:00 AM, said:

No offense anyone, but English mothers at supper time..._mum has been happily boiling meat and veg for hours that I'm going to have to choke down.

Thoughts and prayers Bliss, thoughts and prayers.

[Abyss]

King Lear, on 14 August 2020 - 01:43 PM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 12 August 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

I'm unhealthily impressed by this. I think I would lose my mind if I saw a raccoon. I'm trying to think of anything we have equivalent to show off with but I'm coming up short. Badgers? Hedgehogs? Foxes are nothing special here.

I did lose it when I saw my first (and currently only) raccoon. It was jogging across the road like 'get out of my way'. I would love to see a badger. And a bear.
...

Perspective is funny. Badgers are borderline endangered here. I've only ever seen one in a zoo.
Outside the city but not too far, fishers and minks occasionally. Coyotes a few times. Deer too often to count. One moose. Three bears (hee). An elephant.