Mobile, Alabama: A Curiosity

 

 

A hanging fox tail. Mobile, Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

It wasn't there the day before.

It was there the next day.

A fox tail, it seems.

Real? 

I didn't touch it. 

Why hanging? 

Why hanging there? 

Related fox posts

2016: On the Way to Colorado: Snapshots

2017: Big Bend National Park, Texas: Poop and Circumstance

2018: Backyard Fox

 

Mobile, Alabama: Cheeky Squirrels

Looky Lou squirrel at my window. Mobile, Alabama. December 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

Mobile squirrels think they are something. 

Not only are Mobile squirrels plentiful, they are kinda cocky, practically dashing across the sidewalk right in front of you in a show of no-fucks-given for your hominid-archical bullshit. 

Researchers have classified four personality characteristics of squirrels that vary among individual squirrels: 

1. Boldness
2. Aggressiveness
3. Activity level
4. Sociability

The researchers devised various tests to quantify where individual squirrels fell on a continuum of the traits. Any of us can conduct one of the tests: 

In the third test, researchers quietly and slowly approached individuals in the wild to see how long it took for them to run away. This is a common way to determine an individual's shyness. [I will assume 'shyness' relates to the characteristic of 'boldness.']

As a group, I'd classify Mobilian squirrels to the far right end of the continuum of bold, along with a high activity level.

I lost a half hour of my life while researching for this post, which I shall never recoup, by watching the Backyard Squirrel Maze Ninja Course.  It gave me many utils of pleasure, so it was time well misspent:

PBS' Nature series broadcast a one-hour documentary on squirrels in 2018. You can watch it in its entirety if you've got a Passport account. If you don't have a Passport, you can view several engaging snippets here. 

In memorium

Recently, while on a neighborhood walk, I spied a dead squirrel. Laid out on a raised funereal dais created by a live oak's trunk arms that had surfaced from the loamy depths. Medium-size black ants, those avid morticians, bustled about the remains, performing their organic rituals. 

I admit to a fascination with the squirrel's tiny lower jaw and teeth, a wishbone of delicate architecture. It is maddening that I cannot capture a photo in which both rows of the teeth are equally defined, despite numerous attempts. 

Here's the best of a poor lot: 

Lower jaw of dead squirrel. Mobile, Alabama. June 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

I have added the squirrel's jaw and its full corpus to my Carcass Collection here.

Related squirrel posts

2011: Louisiana Road Trip 2011, Part 1: Driving Day in Driving Rain (squirrels skittering)

2014: Lafayette, Louisiana: Sounds From My Place (squirrels barreling)

2015: Washington, Louisiana: Squirrel Cook-Off (Spoiler alert: It's not the squirrels doing the cooking)

2019: Tucson, Arizona: Temporary Home #2 (gregarious squirrels)

Oi. 

Another 20 minutes of the finite resource which is my life - gone. Here. I don't begrudge the expenditure, however.

 

Mobile, Alabama: An Addition to the Carcass Gallery

 

 

Cedar waxwing, dead. Mobile, Alabama. February 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Although I didn't touch the body, it emitted an essence of still-warm plumpness. 

I found a small stick and I gently moved it off the sidewalk pavement so as to save it from the indignity of an unintentional crush by a pedestrian's footfall. 

How did it die? There was no evidence of injury. Note the small berry in the upper right corner of the photo. If it is a nandina berry, this can kill cedar waxwings that binge on them. But is it a nandina? I don't know.

The cedar waxwing is the newest addition to the We Stop for Carcasses collection:

 

Las Cruces NM 2019: White Sands: Dead Moth

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

My Las Cruces housemates, Beck and Susie, were my travel companions to White Sands the other day.

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

Susie noticed this exquisite moth, sadly dead. She picked it up, held it for awhile, appreciating its beauty, handed it to me.

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

I admired it, too.

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

I laid it in various spots on the sand, tenderly. 

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

Dead moth, White Sands, New Mexico. March 2019.

An addition to the carcass collection in the slide show below:

Missouri: Arrow Rock Camping, Part 2: Additions to the Carcass Gallery

I experienced a moral dilemma about my photo of this racoon, freshly killed on the road. The original photo was very, very graphic, and it prompted me to think what I wanted to achieve by sharing it or even keeping it at all.

Because I'm not entirely sure why I collect this gallery of animal carcasses to begin with, I didn't have a clear answer to the question of why I would censor one of the photos.

I do know that one reason I capture these pictures is because it is an act of seeing an individual that used to be alive, but which is now dead. So the way I edited the racoon picture is in that spirit.  I can look at that small hand, for instance, and touch the leathery palm, in a way. I can see the animal as a whole and not get lost in its entrails. 

Dead racoon, Arrow Rock State Park, Missouri. May 2018.

There is something odd about a carrion eater like this vulture being dead. Do vultures eat dead vultures?

Dead vulture, Arrow Rock State Park, Missouri. May 2018.

Dead vulture, Arrow Rock State Park, Missouri. May 2018.

My cumulative carcass collection below:

Missouri: Three Creeks Hike

Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

I joined a hike at Three Creeks Conservation Area hike, hosted by the Sierra Club.


As winter continues to hang on, the morning began overcast and chilly. Begrudgingly, it did lighten and warm some as the day grew.

Nevertheless, petite wildflowers made a showing. Two adept identifiers, the hike guide and one of the hikers, named spring beauties, wake robin (trillium), sweet william, wild plum (tree), pussytoes, toothwort, lousewort, Dutchmen's breeches, bluebells, false rue anemone, [true] rue anemone, yellow violet, common violet, large bellwort, and a couple I'm forgetting.

Wake robin (trillium). Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

We saw the foliage for future blooming may apples, wild ginger, wild geranium, and colombine.

Paw prints. Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

It wasn't just wildflowers. I added two carcasses to my carcass collection: 

Dead frog. Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

A video:

And a fossil. 

Crinoid parts. Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

And a prosaic hiking sight, poop. (I so love how such a pretty, poetic word as prosaic describes something ordinary.)

Poop. Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

 A fruitful walk.


Below, a slide show:

Three Creeks Conservation Area, Missouri. April 2018.

El Paso: Dove Tail Memoriam

Dead dove on UTEP parking lot. El Paso, Texas. March 2017.

Found on the pavement of a UTEP parking lot.

The upright tail. Yellow corn nuggets spilled out of its gullet.

An addition to the carcass gallery:

El Paso: Some Birds, Alive and Dead

Pigeon, El Paso Library Main Branch, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 

Sparrow, El Paso Library, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 

Pigeon, El Paso Library Main Branch, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

 Some patrons of El Paso Library's Main Branch above.

Below, the flock of El Paso Library pigeons plump up against a chilly El Paso wind:

And a dried dead bird in Segundo Barrio in October, a new addition to the carcass gallery:

Dead bird, Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas, October 2016.

Lounging pigeon, Segundo Barrio, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

A fat pigeon lounging on a Segundo Barrio lawn one October afternoon.

New Mexico: Highway 9: Addition to Carcass Collection

Dead jackalope, Highway 9, New Mexico. September 2016.

Brother4 dropped by El Paso to visit with me for the weekend. Posts here and here about same.

We drove out to Columbus, New Mexico, via Highway 9, with the plan to pop over to Palomas for a quick look-see. (Here are related posts about Columbus and Palomas in 2013.)


En route, we saw a dead jackalope.

Dead jackalope, Highway 9, New Mexico. September 2016.

And also the remains of some hapless creature, with nothing much left but fur and ..... is it possible that there is an intact eye within there? And maybe the outline of an ear?

Dead furry creature, Highway 9, New Mexico. September 2016.

 

Dead furry creature, Highway 9, New Mexico. September 2016.

I've added them to the Carcass Collection:

Colorado: Roxborough State Park

Larkspur in Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016.

May in Colorado meant spring flowers to me.

I looked up a list of best places to see wildflowers in May, and came up with a short list of places that my sister, Murphy, and I might check out in a day's easy commute from Longmont.

Roxborough State Park was first on the list!

Murphy and one of our nephews met up with another nephew and his wife. We packed our lunches to eat outdoors.

It was brisk and sunny.

We walked two trails.

Here's a snip of one in the video below:

High, low, and in between at Roxborough - there was much to grab our attention.

We saw dead critters: Fox, snake, mouse. You can see these in the slideshow at the end of this post.

Some of us were more interested in a thing than others of us. One of my nephews and I could barely tear ourselves away from the American burying beetles (believed to be near extinction) that worked and worked over a clump of organic material toward some unknown end. Flies of various brands flitted about the stage. A video below:

Meanwhile, a gobsmacking event was occurring up the trail. 

My niece and another nephew saw this dead mouse on the trail and actually witnessed a beetle attempt to carry the dead mouse on its back and, MY GOD, THEY DIDN'T TAKE A PICTURE. By the time Nephew #1 and I arrived on the scene, the beetle had given up and moved on. Niece and Nephew #2 tried to make up for their lapse by offering to take me to see two halves of a dead rattlesnake they'd encountered in the parking lot.

Dead mouse at Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016.

Moving our eyes from the minute to the grand, we admired mammoth slabs of red rock that jutted away and up from lush green fields massed with yellow wildflowers.

Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016.

At one point, we could see what looked like the Emerald City in the distance, an island in a plain. Denver.

A view of Denver from Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016

A fine spring day.

Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016

A slideshow below:

Roxborough State Park, Colorado. May 2016

On the Way to Colorado: Snapshots

Route

Between Missouri and Colorado, I took Highway 36 most of the way.

I chose this route because it:

• Has a good mix of four-lane interstate efficiency and two-lane relaxing; 
• Passes through Hiawatha and Marysville, Kansas; and 
• Avoids the oft-traveled Interstate 70, which I've seen plenty before. 

There is some sentimental appeal to Highway 36, also. I used Highway 36 on my very first solo road trip when I traveled up to Mount Rushmore. I remember it for being so empty; a highway that I had to myself. Except for when a police officer pulled me over and gave me a ticket because I was driving in the left lane of the highway! Or speeding. He suggested both. On my birthday! Asshole.

I'm also pretty sure my daughter and I took Highway 36 on our road trip to Alaska many years ago. We left on July 4th. I made sure to drive in the right lane.

Hiawatha was of interest because years and years ago I'd read about a cemetery there. It featured a spot filled with white-stone sculptures honoring a man's deceased wife.

I hadn't heard of Marysville before, but a friend exclaimed her charm with it when I mentioned my route options.

Starlite Motel, Seneca, Kansas. May 2016.

Motel stop

It is always a happy gift to find a retro roadside motel on a trip. At exactly the right time in the evening, upon entering Seneca, Kansas, and when I was ready to pull off the road for the night, I spied the Starlite Motel on my left.

The congenial motel owner greeted me, got me registered, and showed me a basket filled with snacks, from which I could select one. Call me a cheap date, but wow, give me a Route 66ish motel, at a retro room rate, and a SNACK, and I'm in love.

The room was super clean and it was comfortable. Free wifi and a decent TV. 


Dead fox

Gosh, it was sad to see this dead fox on the side of the road the next day.

Normally, I don't feel particularly sad when I see road kills. It is a grim cost of efficient vehicular travel between Points A and B.

But I'm no more immune to the unfair-but-real attraction to the cute-and-furry than the next person. There's even a phrase for this: taxonomic bias.

This fox was cute and furry and looked like a juvenile. Most of all, though, it looked like it had been struck down only minutes earlier.

Dead fox, Highway 36, Kansas. May 2016.

I felt some pangs about adding the fox to the carcass collection, but as you can see, I added it nonetheless.

Snow!

It was May, right?

How enthusiastically I pulled over in Colorado when I saw snow along the side of the road! It wasn't even near the mountains!

Snow in May! Highway 36, Colorado. May 2016.

The embedded insect was a lagniappe.


The Eternity Effect

Sometimes you hit points in a road trip where the road seems interminable. You don't want to look at the time because it's likely only five minutes has gone by since you last looked. You don't want to look at the odometer because, shit, you've only gone two miles since the last time you looked!

There's no radio station coming in, and if there were, it'd be something you don't want to hear. You have overdosed on your own playlists, and need a break from these old friends. You've listened to podcasts or that audio book. It's not time to eat. You don't have to pee. And you're miles and miles from your day's destination.

Interstate 36 for most of Colorado was like this.

But that's just part of the deal sometimes. Pieces of a road trip may include monotony, boredom, impatience to reach the next stop.


At least I did this

Thank the baby deity that I stopped for gas in Anton, Colorado. It was a borderline decision - I had enough gas to "just stop at the next town" or even the one after that, under normal circumstances.

I didn't know at the time there were no other gas stations on Interstate 36 between Anton and Byers.

If I hadn't stopped in Anton, that would have just been another problem on top of this one.


Loose ends

For various reasons, neither Hiawatha nor Marysville were in the cards for a stop on the way out to Colorado. Maybe on the way back.


The most important thing

I arrived at my destination safely.

Antigua, Guatemala: Additions to the Carcass Gallery

Verily, I confess that I collect carcasses. Pictorially, that is.

So it was that when I encountered a wee lil' possum (or large rat?) and a baby chick, both of which had departed to their heavenly rewards, I took a photo.


Is this a baby possum? Or a rat? I was, and still am, fascinated at how cleanly picked its torso is. What critter could have made such a tidy meal of this little one?

Dead baby possum? Or rat? Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

A baby bird:

Dead baby bird. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

My Spanish teacher told me she knows of people who collect road kill. That's their thing. I don't remember if they eat it or skin it and display the pelt or what. My Spanish teacher and I talked of many odd things.

The up-to-date carcass gallery here:

A Visit Back to Missouri: A Barred Owl, Dead

Barred owl, Arkansas. November 2015.

 

I recently made a visit to Missouri.

There was a stretch of road in Arkansas with an inordinately high number of dead birds of prey. If I'd caught on to the trend earlier, I would have counted them.

Barred owl, Arkansas. November 2015.

 The beauty of this barred owl compelled me to turn around and go back.

Barred owl, Arkansas. November 2015.

A strong breeze riffed through the owl's feathers, suggesting a life that no longer was. Its head appeared to be gracefully tucked into a wing.

Was it the victim of a good intention?

Not long ago, I learned at a state park event that we drivers are discouraged from throwing food remnants, such as apple cores, out our car windows. We may think we are doing good - a lil mouse or rabbit or other creature will enjoy our largesse. But it's possible we've set into motion a series of events that ends in death. 

Barred owl, Arkansas. November 2015.

Apple core out window --> mouse steps to roadside for delicious snack --> owl spies juicy mouse eating said morsel --> owl swoops into roadway --> owl and oncoming vehicle collide --> dead owl.

Other recent carcasses include:

Dead frog. Highway 190, west end of Opelousas.

Dead snake. Convent Street, Opelousas.