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

I just recently realized blue jays are corvids, the crow family.

I wasn't surprised. I find corvids fascinating. I like these birds that many people detest, like grackles. I love grackles. They sound like something made by a kid with a Radio Shack 200 in 1 electronics kit. They hunt in packs. They're iridescent.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5969515/corvids-the-birds-who-think-like-humans

Grackles are cool birds. We used to feed them - and everything else - in North Carolina. We're contemplating a bird feeder, but we have to make it safe. Too many predators about. This town is like being in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary - deer in the backyard at 3 am, groundhogs next door, and something we couldn't identify at midnight...spooky-looking in the dark...and we smelled skunk traces one morning...

At least we haven't seen any bears. Like my sister, who has looked out her window to see bears frolicking in her front yard. And that's less than 20 miles from here...nobody messes with bears...

This woman does. http://youtu.be/Bkwy0scRXBU

She knows that black bears mostly harmless.

Sure they are - but if they're browsing in your yard, the safest thing to do is to stay inside until they leave. You don't want to cause an embarrassing social situation. That's why I said nobody messes with them.

And I don't want one in the house. My house is too small for bears, and the cats wouldn't like it at all.

Yeah... cat's and bears don't mix well.


http://youtu.be/RtxVxOXIcFQ

I suspect those people are adopting those bear cubs.

Like a man I talked to last night - he admitted that he and others in the area were (illegally) adopting orphan fawns and feeding them up to yearlings. The deer apparently come back later to 'visit'.

While some may feel this is an antisocial act, most are sympathetic. You can't abandon them when they show up.

Man! I totally misread that and thought that there are cannibalistic deer in your area.

No, only in Scotland. Or was that ?

Reminds me of an evening I stepped out on to the front porch to find that I had a native California grey racoon sitting nextbto the steps feeding from the cat food dish on the top step, its bandit mask a boldly delined stripe over its eyes.

The cats were highly conspicuous on account of their absence, declining to dispute possesion of the front porch (their usual hangout) with the raccoon.

Wussy cats.

In China, pandas are called cat-bears. Red pandas are little cat-bears and giant pandas are big cat-bears.

I've been told that koalas are called no-tail bears, although the phonetic word 'ku-a-la' also exists.

"No-tail bears"...

That's a bit redundant.


Why do Ursas Major and Minor have tails anyway?

There is an affinity between the bears, pandas and raccoons.

They've got a number of skeletal features in common with one another, but not with the modern carnivores or herbivores, more like members of the sloth family than either.

Sometimes I think they may have differentiated before the KT disaster, or at least not very long after.

http://www.google.com/search?q=kinkajou,+images&newwindow=1&client=tablet-android-verizon&biw=962&bih=601&prmd=ivsn&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&fir=GcdKvunYinsx2M%253A%252CY7QPdJhFcmeH4M%252C_%253BTbl4vdPoNtnRNM%253A%252C6eXZYONKJVn3lM%252C_%253BwZOpkrmCLXT99M%253A%252Co1m5VLS_cjHdgM%252C_%253BvT5qwQd8GwrKiM%253A%252C07T1K2QGvP7_ZM%252C_%253BQ64i_Q6Bcikc-M%253A%252C3ZujTF1JtrWUKM%252C_%253B49cWKdc1jmKtqM%253A%252CnGaVNVuvZKE3XM%252C_%253B-9GbBh3wqUnVbM%253A%252Cb6tdEOB3SmCZrM%252C_%253B95eaXBj9Xd0p6M%253A%252Cv4iUC7wHMJumHM%252C_%253BkWSenrW_wk95CM%253A%252C9rsXUmNU5-tkVM%252C_%253B9DfwOfnm0A4s5M%253A%252CeHcata6GV6ea4M%252C_%253B_nSx4hl_1y6AxM%253A%252CLMjn7bi5qwTZmM%252C_%253B-LmAaE7RLvsZ-M%253A%252Cde8a_-bLeebxPM%252C_%253BIDA4VYww4g93WM%253A%252Co1m5VLS_cjHdgM%252C_%253BrOqP2jTVGsYMIM%253A%252CRD6ANeAmo6WGiM%252C_&usg=__8_ECiv7vcWXClmSneE3xKc5ki6k%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj53p7PmbTLAhUP22MKHQiOBewQ7AkIOw#imgrc=eRh3VLg3bCPbWM%3A

Black bears sometimes raid my brother-in-law's bird feeder.

You can't just drop that information in there...the imagination runs wild.

We demand further details. Or even better, pictures.

My wife's cousin lives in Florida. She has had bears stealing naans from the freezer in her garage.

I wonder do they steal curries from other freezers

My son steals* stuff out of my freezer. Ice lollies and peas, usually.



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*He's actually not too bad. He'll only do it if I'm there to watch him, bizarrely. He'll also tell us to look away from our dinners so he can 'steal' something off of our plates, but he won't do it if we've left the table. It's all part of the game.

How young is your son? Not many youngsters will have anything to do with peas.

When my daughter Iz was about one and a half, she couldn't talk in any language that we parents could understand, but older daughter El could understand her.

One day, El announced "Iz says that she put a pea up her nose". I looked up Iz's nose but couldn't see anything.

- Did you put a pea up your nose?
- (nods head)
- Which side?
- (points to left nostril)

I covered her mouth and her other nostril with my hands and said: "Blow!"

A pea came shooting out of her nose.

I can just see that.