Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Listen To Animal Warnings

The day before I killed that thirty foot rattler in the backyard I was actually warned that it was there but failed to listen.

I was standing in the kitchen making some rice when I heard this chipmunk chirping in distress. It is a very distinct sound and one I have heard many times as it is the same chirp they make when they fall in the hot tub and can’t get out. We have lost many chipmunks in the hot tub.

I could see the distressed animal it was in an old cedar tree about twenty five feet from the back door on the other side of the dog fence. The chipmunk was standing on a branch about seven feet off the ground looking straight down chirping with a vengeance. With every chirp the tail moves up and down.

There was quite a bit of sage and dead brush under the cedar so I couldn’t see what the chipmunk was noisily looking at. I walked out back to the fence and told the small critter to shut up maybe eight feet from the thing. It didn’t even look at me just kept right on chirping.

I then pitched a couple of rocks into the brush thinking it might be a stray cat and after nothing ran out told the animal to shut up again and went back inside. The chipmunk continued to bark at the invader for a couple hours then mysteriously stopped.

The next day I found out what that poor chipmunk was so scared of.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

30 feet?! Sure it wasn't an anaconda?

Adam said...

That's crazy! I'm guessing now you are paying more attention when the tree rats start chirping.

BigBear said...

Well ok it was really somewhere between 6 and 8 feet but still big enough to give me nightmares.

Adam I am hyper aware of their chirping now.

Anonymous said...

Thirty foot rattler - now THATS scary! Even the little 'buzzworms' give me the willies, something like that would cause me cardiac arrest.

Mayberry said...

The critters will let you know what's up. That's how I knew hurricane Ike was gonna pass me by last year, the birds and squirrels and such never bugged out...

Anonymous said...

Nice. Not.

Anonymous said...

so the snake goes from 30 feet long to 6 to 8 feet long. Isn't the actual "realistic" length more like up to 38 inches? After all, that is the actual longest length of the rattlers in the SLV area.fedogies

BigBear said...

Oh no maybe even closer to 10 feet

Anonymous said...

Perhaps before you post sensationalist claims to hear yourself speak, you might want to do some research prior to at least make it believable. Since surely, the rattlesnake wasn't the feared Western Diamondback, which rarely reaches much more over 6 feet in length, and the pigmy rattlers, well, the name says it all, you are a dreamer who likes to blow his own horn for attention. Or so it seems in this case now, doesn't it!

Closer to 10 feet is ridiculous! "If" it were closer to 10 feet, it would be worth a lot of money, dead or alive!

BigBear said...

It was easily 15 feet and had lasers for eyes.

BigBear said...

The rattle was as big as a beer can!

Anonymous said...

This man "Big Bear" clearly has never spent a day in the outdoors. He does not live in a cabin he lives in a large city in Virginia near Langley. He is an agent of the ZOG and is mining data on survival types. He had his two neighbors "dissapeared" and others to follow.

Little Rainbow Comics said...

Hey - poison is poison - I'd be scared no matter how big that thing was...

oksurvivor said...

Hey anonymous, I take it you've never been fishing? We've all caught minnows that turned in to 80 pound catfish. Shut up man, we all knew he was exaggerating.