Thursday, January 16, 2014

If they could only talk to me.

I've been looking at my Tiggers and wondering what she's saying. It's clear that there's more then just a meow. Last night I noticed that she repeated herself to tell me what she wanted to eat. She looked at me and repeated what she said like don't you understand me, I'm not stuttering. I've never heard of anyone trying to study animals and find out what they are saying. With the primates they were taught a language we knew and didn't try to understand what they were saying in their native tongue.
As I drove up I could see the deer in the yard. They looked over at me as I greeted them then looked back over at the house to see if I was coming out of the house. I don't think they understood that I was the same person. I find it so amazing being close to the deer. I'll get within 10 feet of them and walk around the herd. The babies really amazing me. They are so small and so full of life. I've never seen a creature so full of life before like I do with the baby deer.
The raccoons and skunks are a trip too. They make good forest friends but they are a little shy. One night I was eating cookies and went to the back porch where a raccoon was. Mrs. Nippers who has a nip taken out of her ear was there. I bent over to give her a cookie and she took it from me. We sat there on the back porch eating cookies until she had enough. I just kept giving her cookies when she was finished and she would take them from me. She's been a friend ever since then and doesn't run off at the sight of me. When she had the five babies she really had her hands full. When she would come around with them she didn't growl at me like other mothers did when I'd get close to the babies. In fact she sort of showed them off to me. The babies would get into the cats food and play with each other. I hung a sock up with a sock in side and they would pull and play with that every time they came here. On my YouTube channel I have them playing in the garden together. The babies liked piling on top of each other and rolling down the hill. I noticed that the babies are the only ones to make that cute raccoon vocalizations. Then I noticed the babies would react to mom and she was making a noise and I was only hearing the tail end of her call to the babies. She was making a sound that was over 20kHz and then it would tapper to a lower noise as she was stopping. I'll have to put a microphone outside next spring and run it into the program I have. I have one that is sort of to analyze voices. Now that I think of it I think the top of it is 20k.
A couple summers ago there were a lot of babies here. They would play together while the mothers would rest under their favorite trees. One day this little female came here with mom and the other babies weren't here yet. She started crying out for them I'm guessing. Since I really don't know why she was really crying out, I'm just guessing. I think she wanted her friends to play with. She seemed rather depressed when she didn't see them. When the babies did show up their mother didn't want them running like they did the day before. The babies wanted to go but would look over at mom and she was saying no. I would have liked to see them running and playing again. The little female baby tried to motivate the babies by jumping and kicking her back legs out as she jumped. The two babies kept looking over at mom and then looked down as to be sad. So that was two emotions displayed to me by the babies.
One night when I first moved in it was raining pretty hard. I looked out the window to see a baby deer standing there. A larger male deer came over and put his head over the baby's neck and then started licking the baby. I'm thinking that the baby deer seemed frightened and the large male deer comforted the baby. It really looked like that to me. I was wondering where the mother of the baby was because it seemed pretty small.
Taking photographs of the wildlife I've been trying to capture them expressing emotions. It's taken several years but I can see it now but it's not that clear in the photo. The other day I got a picture of a mother deer licking this orphan baby she took in. The baby just stood there as mom was licking her. They walked off together side by side. The deer have been one of the only creature that I seen smiling but then their lips sort of go that way. I know when they have another emotion like being concern their lips go flat across instead of up when they are happy.
I noticed that turkeys show emotions but you really have to look. Their faces are sort of fixed but it's their actions I've watched and noticed when they are happy. It's also the angle they point their heads. That's something I've learned over years to see. I have such a different opinion of turkeys these days. They are smart birds. I've watch them gather in a group and plan out what they were going to do. They lined up and put on a parade for the female birds. It clearly showed that they conveyed an idea between them. I've only seen them do that once out of all the years I've been watching them. Turkeys do have a sort of language they talk to each other with. After watching them I started picking up what they were saying. It was more a feeling I got when I heard them. I noticed that other birds about the same size made the same vocalizations even though they were a different type of bird. When the vultures started eating this dead skunk killed by dogs coming through the turkeys came up to the edge of the creek and watched the big birds. I don't know if they were trying to see if they were related. They sure seemed interested in seeing those big birds here because then never had seen them up close.
I'm going to have to figure out a way of taking voice prints. See if I can learn and see if the creatures have some sort of vocal language. I'd like to figure out what's going on in the minds of the kitties. I'm really amazed at the different sounds that the kitties make. Each kitten makes a unique set of sounds. Dieter makes sounds that are almost silent. She makes these two little chirp like cries when she comes up to me. Momma kitty is totally silent, so is Wheezer. I noticed that Wheezer stopped her coughing or wheezing. She was real bad when she first came here.Sprockets meows real quiet too. She also makes what sounds like a sentence, it's a series of little meows and gurgles. Every one is unique but for the most part the wildlife is mostly silent. They talk by looks to each other. It's like they don't have to say anything but the others know looking at them what they are saying.

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