So, I'm walking down the street with Silvio, minding my own business when I notice a very loud mockingbird sitting on a wire directly above me. I remember thinking his/her chirping sounded like a car alarm.

Sil stops to sniff a nearby tree and when he's finished we continue on, but I realize the mockingbird is now sitting on a FOR SALE sign right in front of me.

We take about five steps pass the bird when it swoops down and hovers over Silvio's back. Of course, I am shocked and my reaction is to pull Sil toward me (but Sil was apparently to interested in what he was sniffing because he never noticed the crazy bird.)

I thought for sure the bird was going to peck at his ears or something. Thankfully, it didn't attack.

I've never seen anything like that before and I was just wondering if that is normal? I assume the Mocking birds are protecting their eggs. And I have seen mockingbirds fight with each other. But to pick a fight with a dog is impressive and crazy.

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This from my co-worker and gal pal Megan. As an investigative reporter, she encounters far more interesting people than I ever could hope to meet.

In 2001 I wrote a short story for the Sun-Sentinel about a South Florida woman who asked the Town Commission in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea to prohibit people from feeding squirrels. "Common sense would tell you they are a rodent, and you wouldn't want to attract rodents," she told her elected officials. They scoffed and sent her, um, scurrying. "I feed the squirrels. I'm guilty," said then-Commissioner Bob Waller.

Twiggy in action

Since the story appeared, I've been getting, unsolicited, a regular newsletter from, of all things, squirrel lovers. "In a Nutshell" is usually eight pages long, complete with photos and headlines such as: "Baldy and His Gang -- Part 5" ( a 1,200-word essay by a squirrel-feeding window washer charmed by a hoard of squirrels peering into his bucket). In the May/June issue the same author has a piece on his 1997 invitation to appear on the Rosie O'Donnell show to defend the honor of all squirrels, whom Rosie likened to "rats with too much hair" (a phrase she no doubt later employed in her feud with Donald Trump).

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Gail Gedan writes

There have been rumors of chickens in the neighborhood around Plantation's Seminole Park. We've certainly heard the rooster crowing in the morning, and people have seen fleeting glances of chicken-like birds wandering the grounds, but today, while walking my son to school, Mr. and Mrs. Plantation Chicken decided to put on a strutting, squawking show. After I dropped him off, I went back home for my camera and chased them around the park. Here they are!

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When wildlife blunders into suburbia, the animals seldom win.

Police shot a cougar roaming in a Chicago North Side neighborhood Monday. The officers said they decided to kill it, rather than use a tranquilizer gun, saying such animals can be difficult to knock out and move.

Instead, the cougar – or at least its skeleton – will be relocated to the city’s huge Field Museum, which specializes in natural history exhibits. Reminds me of the “nuisance” alligators that end up deported from the landscape ponds in our western subdivisions to the handbag factory. Hey, didn’t this used to be their turf?

Of course, there haven’t been cougars near Chicago for more than 100 years. Turns out this one was not an escaped exotic pet, as originally suspected, but appears to be a wild animal that somehow migrated from the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Here’s the complete story.
(Tribune photo by Candice Cusic)

Cougar killed in Chicago may have journeyed from South Dakota!
By Robert Mitchum and Jeremy Manier
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — The voyage may sound improbable, but wildlife officials say that a DNA test should reveal whether a cougar killed Monday in Chicago took a 1,000-mile trip from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Wisconsin before being shot by police in the Roscoe Village neighborhood.
On Tuesday, veterinarians performed a necropsy, an autopsy for animals, on the cougar at the Cook County Animal & Rabies Control facility in Bridgeview. Early evidence indicated that the cougar was of wild origin, rather than an escaped captive, and samples were taken for comparison to blood that a cougar left in January in Milton, Wis.
DNA analysis suggested that the Wisconsin animal was most similar to those who live in South Dakota, and experts say it may be the same specimen that eventually strayed into the city.
“It’s intriguing to think it may end up being the one that was here in Wisconsin,” said Doug Fendry, an area wildlife supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

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I scoff at Lifetime channel movie weepers, but animal stories always get me. Here is one posted on Snopes recently about Freedom, a fledgling bald eagle that fell out of her nest at a Seattle golf course, crushing both of her wings.

She was nursed back to health by Jeff Guidry, an educational team member at an Everett, WA. wildlife care center, who later was diagnosed with cancer.

Dare you to read it and not cry. Double dog dare.

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