Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I get raccoons monkeying with my trash dumpster at least once a week. Trying to get inside. They are really annoying and at the same time little geniuses. Extremely inventive. They are amusing and incredibly annoying. I like watching them. I live at least a half mile from a semi-wild area. My neighborhood is blocks of residential in all directions for miles. I get deer too, occasionally. I’m 2.5 miles from downtown.
Urban wildlife are really interesting. Where do they sleep? Where do they wander? Where is “home”?
Absent man, if aliens buzzed by to rate potential future sentient species, it’d be dolphins and raccoons as most likely to succeed. Maybe otters.
@de stijl:
My best raccoon story goes back a few years to a late friend of Crackers and mine. He lived in an A-frame he and his wife had built (what was then) in the hills outside of town. I was visiting him one night, open the front door to leave, and there were 4 raccoons sitting in a circle on their haunches. Just chittering quietly between themselves. Three of them looked over their shoulders at me and stopped chittering. They just stared at me. I eased the door shut and told Bill that I’d stay and have another drink with him. Don’t know what the discussion was about, didn’t want to get involved.
This summer I had four urban deer eyeball the fuck out of me.
Normal, wild deer would bolt at the sight of you or your scent.
These guys stood stock still and stared me down. It was damned intimidating, actually. So brazen!
It was a few minutes after dawn in an obscure jiggle of a street down where residential meets the wee creek that runs through the north side of Des Moines. It is a small creek, but generally sunk in a honking steep ravine. Big gulley for it’s britches. Almost entirely undeveloped, just built around.
I walked down the street. They saw me. Four total. Two on the left, two on the right. By my reckoning Mom, Dad, yearling kid, and an aunt. I walked on. They stood still. Absolutely still, eyeballing my every step. Spookily still and watchful.
I ended up bisecting the middle path. Exactly half way between both sets. Deer should not stand and stare. They should bolt. It is their nature. That they did not bolt kinda freaked me out.
I just kept walking. Staring at them as they stared right back at me. I presented no threat. I was wearing headphones listening to Bach. We very carefully and very watchfully co-existed for a minute or so. I walked through and past and on never stopping. I told them they looked beautiful. They were!
Why they did not bolt still astounds me. It was freaky. Deer generally do not behave that way.
There is this corridor of genuine wildness, well, urban wildness, that is a few feet or a few blocks from our houses. Wildness exists in the most mundane spaces.
I get raccoons monkeying with my trash dumpster at least once a week. Trying to get inside. They are really annoying and at the same time little geniuses. Extremely inventive. They are amusing and incredibly annoying. I like watching them. I live at least a half mile from a semi-wild area. My neighborhood is blocks of residential in all directions for miles. I get deer too, occasionally. I’m 2.5 miles from downtown.
Urban wildlife are really interesting. Where do they sleep? Where do they wander? Where is “home”?
Absent man, if aliens buzzed by to rate potential future sentient species, it’d be dolphins and raccoons as most likely to succeed. Maybe otters.
Great shot! That little bugger really wants the dessert tray.
“Excuse me… Do you have any Grey Poupon?”
@de stijl:
My best raccoon story goes back a few years to a late friend of Crackers and mine. He lived in an A-frame he and his wife had built (what was then) in the hills outside of town. I was visiting him one night, open the front door to leave, and there were 4 raccoons sitting in a circle on their haunches. Just chittering quietly between themselves. Three of them looked over their shoulders at me and stopped chittering. They just stared at me. I eased the door shut and told Bill that I’d stay and have another drink with him. Don’t know what the discussion was about, didn’t want to get involved.
@Flat Earth Luddite:
This summer I had four urban deer eyeball the fuck out of me.
Normal, wild deer would bolt at the sight of you or your scent.
These guys stood stock still and stared me down. It was damned intimidating, actually. So brazen!
It was a few minutes after dawn in an obscure jiggle of a street down where residential meets the wee creek that runs through the north side of Des Moines. It is a small creek, but generally sunk in a honking steep ravine. Big gulley for it’s britches. Almost entirely undeveloped, just built around.
I walked down the street. They saw me. Four total. Two on the left, two on the right. By my reckoning Mom, Dad, yearling kid, and an aunt. I walked on. They stood still. Absolutely still, eyeballing my every step. Spookily still and watchful.
I ended up bisecting the middle path. Exactly half way between both sets. Deer should not stand and stare. They should bolt. It is their nature. That they did not bolt kinda freaked me out.
I just kept walking. Staring at them as they stared right back at me. I presented no threat. I was wearing headphones listening to Bach. We very carefully and very watchfully co-existed for a minute or so. I walked through and past and on never stopping. I told them they looked beautiful. They were!
Why they did not bolt still astounds me. It was freaky. Deer generally do not behave that way.
There is this corridor of genuine wildness, well, urban wildness, that is a few feet or a few blocks from our houses. Wildness exists in the most mundane spaces.