We see a lot of stuff right at the bottom of our driveway. Lately the muscadines have been falling from the vines by the dozens. There’s a very productive vine right across the street from our driveway. Sam likes them.
There seems to be pretty general agreement that grapes are potentially bad for dogs, so I try to keep him from eating them. He’s quick with the grapes, though.
Tuesday as we walked down the drive for the dogs’ morning constitutional, the three of us (Zeke, Sam and me) saw a fairly large object a few yards up the street from the driveway. I identified it as an armadillo almost immediately; there really isn’t anything else that looks like an armadillo around here. It wasn’t moving, but I couldn’t tell whether it was alive or dead. The dogs lunged and barked, so we turned around.
When we went for our longer walk, I decided to let them sniff it out.
It was definitely recently deceased, but it didn’t have any obvious injuries. It had probably been hit by a car, maybe a glancing blow. The dogs lost interest pretty quickly.
Later in the day it was on the side of the road and had become dinner for a vulture.
We had a squirrel at the end of our driveway last week that was dinner for a vulture. Commonplace except that it was in the middle of suburbia. Neighbors passing slowed in their cars to see this large bird in the middle of the street.
Paul — Vultures are a pretty common sight around here, especially if you look up. We pass a water tower on our way to town in a sort of semi-residential/commerical area that attracts a lot of vultures for sunning purposes.
I’ve never seen an armadillo, so it’s interesting that you even have them there. Always a bummer when you see them after they have made contact with a car. A friend posted a photo on Facebook of a bobcat that had met the same fate. Humans with cars can be such a bummer for wildlife.
Robin — I’ve mentioned armadillos before. A few years ago I did a post, which I’m too lazy to actually look up, and mentioned how many I saw hit by cars on the highway between Huntsville, where I worked, and home. They are relatively new arrivals in this part of the country, but they have certainly made themselves at home.
Years ago I was visiting a friend in New Mexico. We saw a dog almost hit by a car, and my friend said something like, “God is going to say, ‘Well, people, it looks like cars have turned out not to be such a good idea after all, so you’re going to have to look for something else.'”