Animal Sightings

Of course you’ve read that Tookie, the toucanet, is no longer in our house, but that doesn’t mean that we are short on animal sightings. Attached are a few pictures of some animals that we have encountered in the past weeks.

The boys captured a low hanging bat they had found on a neighbors entrance gate. We were especially careful with this sad little mammal because it had barely enough strength to hang.. It obviously was not healthy and we did not handle it with bare hands. We put water and various types of food in its container, but it did not move. We think it became a raccoon treat as we found the empty container the next morning.



There is a family of beautiful raccoons (mapache) that was visiting. The mother and her two cubs would come to the porch after sunset to dig into a bucket of seashells and to dream about riding a bicycle someday. We have not seen them since Troy, the local Husky, was barking them up a tree during a 1AM encounter.





Troy hangs out here everyday, attempting to become better acquainted with a mother cat and her two kittens. The mother defends her territory quite well. If the dog gets close to the kittens, the cat charges and hisses and chases it away. Knowing Troy, I think he would love to use his powerful jaws to play with the kittens.






Having cats up in our ceiling area will keep mouse populations down, but I don’t think it will affect the spider community as much. We’ve had some real beauties lately. If a spider is on the floor or walls we capture it in a ‘critter cup’ and toss it outside. If it is on an upper wall or ceiling, I usually let it be. Knowing that spiders do have venom, and not knowing the severity of their bites, we don’t take our chances and do not handle spiders with our bare hands.



Like the raccoon, the sloth is another animal that looks as if you could pet it. There is someone here that takes care of orphaned baby sloths and we have petted them before. But they grow, and those strong claws become stronger and could easily cause some damage to human flesh.

On the walk home from school one evening, I heard the cry of a baby sloth that had fallen to the trail below. The mother was up in the trees looking for the most direct way down. I stood still about twenty meters away while the mother slowly climbed down to reclaim her baby. I slowly approached to about a meter away to take these pictures. They both looked relieved and so was I after watching this whole ordeal for 30 minutes. Local dogs have killed sloths, and with the number of dogs that roam the area, this mother and baby are lucky. Warning: sloths are known as the slowest moving mammal, but in defense, it can swipe its bear like claws at an attacker. Also, consider how strong it must be to spends its life hanging upside down from tree limbs, and then think about how dogs have been severely wounded when a sloth gets a chance to wrap its limbs around the dog.





Signed: M