Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for June 07, 2015

There’s also the problem of being a bird in a Freightliner’s grill.

Welcome to Oregon. We have Opossums.

Meh… junk food is junk food… at least the price is right.

I saw a web article about crows or ravens, (I can’t tell the differrence) in the larger cities of Japan that drop hard shell nuts in the cross walks of busy streets then wait until the cars go by cracking the nut and then thy fly down and eat the meat while people walk by. Birds are pretty smart.

Check out the road kill on the highways of NYC…No buzzard would survive trying to eat that. I’ve seen dogs cats and even deer carcases laying in the road. Rotted to the bone.

’Possums, deer, skunk by the bushel full, coons, foxes, hogs, dogs, cats, squirrels, and even an occasional buzzard.

When I lived in Oregon, there was a flock of crows that would drop nuts in front of oncoming cars, then fly down and get the goodies after they’d been run over.

Why did the chicken cross the road?To prove to the possums and squirrels that it could be done.

Why don’t they go here?

If you don’t like armadillo, leave Texas.

I remember once watching a vulture struggle frantically to take off with a roadkill rabbit before I reached him. I’m sure he thought I was going to try and take his meal away, and I kind of felt sorry for him that I couldn’t communicate that he was welcome to the squashed bunny and just had to wait until I drove past..Finally, just as I came down the final stretch, he managed to get his prize into the air and take off with it..Twenty feet up, he lost his grip on it and it plummeted back to earth.

Love the McFat truck !!

Well, you got your dead cat and you got your dead dog.On a moonlight night you got your dead toad frog.You got your dead rabbit and your dead raccoon.The blood and the guts are gonna make you swoon.Dead skunk in the middle of the road……you know the rest.

Passed a dead skunk just yesterday….whew it stunk. So glad it wasn’t in my neighborhood.

great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts..mutilated monkey meat..hairy pickled piggy feet…and me without a spoon……….great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts..scab sandwich puss on top..vulture vomit camel snot..deep dish boogers soaking in a bowl of fat….and me without a spoon….

In England it’s hedgehogs (or it used to be in my youth).

I once saw a great cartoon (worthy of Non Seq) of a 40 foot long hedgehog running across a road and squashing a car…

A quick google shows 42,000+ deer in PA in 1991 and they mention that it’s trending higher.

I don’t know what the current numbers are but I’ve come close to being a statisic more times than I care to think about.

Yah, if they want a change of diet, try the Great Lakes states. Rural enough to have lots of critters, populated enough to have lots of traffic. Dogs, cats, possums, rabbits, squirrels, deer, skunk, groundhogs, raccoon, the occasional bird and every now and then something exotic.

I sooo picked the wrong day to read this while eating breakfast.

I thought maybe the McFat truck crashed and spilled its contents onto the roadway.

Armadillos have made it to Alabama. We call them possum on a half shell.

Armadillo’s were created so we could have “Opossum on the half shell”

Armadillos? You kidding? Just no taste.

Armadillo Chili, yum – yum!!

My mother kept track of where we lived by the most prevalent road kill. In Mississippi it was armadillos, in NY, skunks, in NC it’s either squirrels or possums.

Food, Glorious Food, we’re happy to try some.

leons, Yeah, you are right. The Great Lakes States have a grand variety of road kill. Lots of snakes, porcupines, boar, bear, and I swear, Michigan has more turkey vultures than any state….The great Lakes are where all the food is….I notice the raccoons around here nap way to close to traffic. At least I think they’re napping…….My girl and I were hunting for Petosky stones near Charlevoix where the waves washed up on a stony beach. We looked up behind us and there were 13 vultures hovering about 40 ft. up looking at us! She turned to me and asked, “Do they know something we don’t know?” I asked, “Do you feel OK?”

For millennia, various types of birds have been dropping things like Nut and Clams onto Rocks to crack the shell.They are just grateful that Humans have finally learned how to make Huge flat rocks for Birds to eat off of.

Careful with those Armadillos.They carry Leprosy..

We have lots of deer road kill (why they don’t put the “Deer Crossings” at more convenient spots I’ll never know".

They are small potatoes compared to moose. A moose’s legs are so long that when hit by a car the moose invariably goes through the windshield and kills or maims anyone in the front seat. They are also many times heavier. The wife of a friend of mine had her neck broken in such an incident and is quadrapelegic as a result.

dabugger: Hoover hog? It makes good barbeque because it tastes like pork. And a lot of people survived the Great Depression because even a .22 could kill them.

PaintTheDust: My wife informed me there was a dead possum in our yard. I asked “Are you sure?”

Turkey vultures are one of the few birds that hunt by scent, most birds have poor to totally missing olfactory sense. On the other hand, great horned owls have none at all, which why they are one of the few successful predators of skunks.

Night-Gaunt49: The only lynx in Texas is the bobcat (Lynx rufus). Saw one running across the highway just a couple weeks ago.

Hogwash. Vehicles serve a very necessary role in the ecosystem. They eliminate the slow and stupid animals that don’t know how to get out of the friggin’ road! Except for moose. They eliminate drivers who are too stupid to not brake for animals bigger than they are. Thank goodness we don’t have wild elephants crossing the highways!