Sunday, April 07, 2013

Observations of Emotions

I was watching a porch full of skunks last night. Well not a porch full but three skunks on the porch and two skunks out by the water bowls. When I heard the two at the water bowls fighting. They are pretty good most of the time and don’t like fighting except when it’s about food. They always thing the other skunk that’s close to them wants to steel their food. So they make some noise to keep the other skunk away. The other noise they make is if a skunk is biting one of them. I could see the passive skunks by me panicking hearing a skunk in pain or being hurt crying out. the way they look at me, it’s like “Please help that skunk he’s hurting.” Or it could be, “Keep me safe here for being hurt.” People are afraid of skunks when they are so passive and easy going. They panic all the time that someone wants to do them harm. They really are a shy creatures when you get down to it. That’s just their way of staying safe. Since I live in the sticks, I’m the only human they have ever seen. These skunks once they got used to seeing me turned out to be good little friend. They like getting pets. It’s so cute when they stand on their back feet to get a better view. I’m amazed at what great sniffers they have. You can throw something they eat through the air, it can bounce away from them but they can smell the air and follow the scent down to where every the food item went. Skunks don’t see so well but good enough. They use their sense of smell to get around. I’ve never seen any animal with a better sniffer. I’m not sure why some skunks get alone with each other and some are so fearful and nip at other skunks. When I make friends with them they tend to get alone with each other a lot better.

Pentax 039

Little Buddy with the Bo-Boo leg. I don’t know where it lives but it’s getting it’s tail thinned by getting the hair caught on something over and over. It’s so amazing seeing them take a cat treat out of my hand and back up to eat it. They have small front hands and bigger back legs so they are like a wedge. It must be for hunting and dragging something out of the ground. They are good diggers and have the claws to do some digging.

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