Category Archives: Critters

A butterfly is never old or strong. She greets the world as worm upon a leaf, and inches through beginning in the long phase of herself: a fuzzy garden thief. She rests awhile cased in her cocoon, suspended senseless while … Continue reading →

Opossums frequent here. Among the skunks and squirrels and raccoons with ugly feet, marsupials are found. They’re making bunks beneath my porch and boardwalk: urban suite of fauna sharing time beyond my door, and not a problem looking for a … Continue reading →

I didn’t like the crows when they arrived all shiny dashing black and raucous song. It’s clear that here agreed with them – they thrived and didn’t leave, and seem now to belong as much as people, populating trees instead … Continue reading →

I’m not an ornithologist – I’ve friends who study birds with telescopic glee, but wings instead of hands won’t serve my ends, and caged bird eyes are freaked and panicky. I certainly appreciate their kind. I like the hawk and … Continue reading →

The walnut limb outside my study sprang as violently as a trampoline, when warring squirrels landed there and sang their bicker, chittering alarms between the balding branch and soaring central bole. Then up that trunk and down they loudly chased, … Continue reading →

I share the yard with 7 skunks, I think. I know they’re polecats but they’re hard to count. I see them out at 4 a.m. – they slink and romp and by their tails the kits amount to 5 or … Continue reading →

I posted Snail Trails on January 12, 2011. It carried a report about the morning I was the scourge of Berkeley snails. I just reviewed a sonnet I wrote about that experience. To tell the truth, I think the number … Continue reading →