h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Montana's suburban wildlife includes mountain lions, moose, elk and bears.

I'm glad there is little danger of me meeting any of those, FG. But there is reputed to be pumas living wild in Surrey with sightings reported from time to time. The last one about 10 years ago.

I've run into possums, skunks and racoons in the City so far. We had a hawk that was hanging out in one of the quads too. It's a jungle in here...literally now!

*tophat sounds*

So I just flew in from Miami, and boy are my arms tired!

*wawaaawaawa*

[Hyp]

Mind you its not a puma i'd worry about it would be more , wild boar
they are comeing back in a big way ,yes its a good thing, big small whatever sized cats most are shy and avoid us not nice meat , whilst boars are not so fussy eaters also will attack us without a second thought.

Saw a lizard in hibernation the other day doing bit of preparation to border !! nice to see.

[{Courtesy}]

The animal I'd hate to meet in a dark alley around here is a grizzly bear sow--with cubs.

The strangest urban adaptation I've seen is the parrots in Brooklyn, NY. The electrical transformers keep their nests warm over the winter, simulating a tropical enviroment.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/parrots/parrots.html

Parrots in NY? Cool.

hey dave, what were you doing in Miami?? Spring break?

My illness isn't over, dang it. The fever has come back. I also have a heightened sensitivity to smell and taste (which makes it really difficult to be around myself just now ), such that the only food I want and can bear is jello. I baked a chicken pie thinking it would be nice and bland and was revolted by it.

The idea of a witch is merely a Christian propaganda device to slander old wise women. Bring 'em on to every holiday, I say.

[GDZ]

You know, I now live in a much smaller town than a few years prior. Fulton, MO, has a population around 12,248 (so the sign on the edge of town says), which is a far cry from approximately 3 million people in and around St Louis! Things are naturally a bit wilder around here, especially with the large tracts of farmland stretching away from the outskirts of town. Only a few months ago, down in Holts Summit (about 15 minutes south of here), someone bagged a cougar in their back yard. I have to call it a cougar, because mountain lion would presuppose we have mountains locally, which we don’t--just rolling hills. I really didn’t expect anything *THAT* wild to still appear in this region.

I guess it’s no stranger than what happened to Roy Rogers and Dale Evans many years ago. They’d taken a trip into town from their ranch, with the idea of doing some shopping. They went to one of the better known clothing stores to update their wardrobe. Dale picked out a number of fancy dresses and a few outfits with fringe; Roy didn’t buy clothes, just settled for a nice new pair of boots. On the way back home in their surrey, a cougar pounced from a rock outcropping onto the back of the wagon. Before Roy and Dale could react, it had shredded the boxes and bags from the haberdasher’s, found the boots, snatched them up in its jaws, and bounded away into the arroyo. Needless to say, Roy was heartbroken; however, he resigned himself to the loss, figuring he’d never catch up to the cougar again. Not too many weeks later, Roy and Dale were in town again; this time to pick up a nephew at the railway station. When they stepped out onto the platform, what to their wondering eyes should appear, but a cougar sniffing about behind the benches, checking out people’s footwear?! In sudden recognition, Dale nudged her partner and said, “Pardon me, Roy, ain’t that the cat that chewed your new shoes?”

B4kittyfindsthesockdrawer

B4, I am firmly in the opinion that there is not a single mountain in all of MO. I have seen the Ozarks and they are beautiful lush hills. So Cougar sounds right for me. Now here in Utah, we gots mountain lions, though few enough of them.

Not too far from Courtesy and I, we recently had a mountain lion attack two people, killing one. I might live in a county with more people than all of the state of Montana, but we're right up against the Santa Ana mountains, and in Irvine, in particular, there's a lot of undeveloped space, so there are mountain lions around here.

I can't really understand the point of reintroducing wild boar, they were originally hunted to extiction partly for food and partly because they were such a danger.

There is a large flock of wild green parrakeets that come into roost in Claremont Park, Esher, Surrey (a National Trust property). If you visit in the late afternoon they can be very noisy.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/environment/story/0,14124,1160291,00.html

[Ben]

Pippi Longstocking was not a witch, but a rebellious redhead and the strongest girl in the world.

Someone made a very nice picture of Pippi to go with my Astrid Lindgren entry A692840 (it became the Editor's choice!) but I don't know who, because it doesn't say in the edited entry.

Could this have been before the Community scheme? Could it have been - eh - was her name Shri?

I was thinking about those wild animals we have a lot here. They hardly ever come into towns. But then again, we have enough room for them in the forests. Wolves are a bit short of space but they never come to towns. Only elks and foxes.

In Sweden, elks are seen within urban areas every now and then, but wolves are rare.

There was a wolf some years ago however that attracted quite a lot of attention when it decided to take a shortcut right through the city centre of Stockholm (in the middle of the night). It was discreetly followed by a police car, at a distance, but the wolf kept heading straight north and left the city in due time, well before the rush hour.

[p]