Do not be deceived
This animal only looks cute
One dawn, a long time ago, I went out to my son’s house (I cannot remember why I was there so early) and was greeted at the door by his crying mother-in-law. Even earlier that morning, a fisher cat had come into the yard and killed seven of the family’s chickens and ducks. For some reason it spared an eighth duck, but the bird was never quite the same after that night of carnage.
The sad fact is the fisher cat didn’t eat the ducks. It simply massacred them, including a delightful white duck named Bubbles, and it fell to me to bury the victims before the kids awoke.
It’s OK. I grew up farm-adjacent and I’m good at digging but it was difficult to find space for everyone.
Years later, my husband and I were watching television and we heard what sounded like someone crying for help. We went outside to see if we could do that, help, but the sound kept moving and we gave up.
I live a short walk away from what passes for downtown in my little village, and yet I have seen or heard more wild animals here than in any other place I’ve lived, and that includes 16 years spent living in the woods.
So far in my little yard, I’ve seen multiple deer, countless roly-poly raccoons (including three skipping along in a line up the street one dusk), a fox that appears to get off work the same time every day and trots up the road along the raccoons’ path, a possum that loves my backyard, and handfuls of snakes. I’ve only heard a fisher cat, though one night I saw something from a distance lumbering down my street. From the side, the thing looked like a platypus with a weird head. I raced around the house to a front window to get a better look but when I opened the shade, the thing turned and ran off.
The next morning, I went online and figured the animal I saw was probably a fisher cat, which is neither a fisher nor a cat.
I love the world that’s going on outside my house every night. It’s like we all come home and go inside and turn the world over to the animals. If I’m up in the middle of the night, I often park myself at a window because I’m pretty certain something interesting will pass by. It makes me think about the world going on when I lay down at night. I sleep a little better knowing they’re all out there living their lives.
My house in Danbury was across the street from a 600 acre town park that was mostly still wild. I came home late one night to see a fox very casually trotting down the street. I often walked in the park, and thankfully never saw a snake, or that might have been the end of it.
We've taken so much of their habitat. Turning it back over to them at night seems only fair.
We have so much wildlife around my house. To name a few: bear, deer, porcupine, turkeys, eagles, and lots of foxes. The wildlife seems to be increasing here. We never saw bear or fox when we first moved in 30 years ago.