Animal & bird life I have seen and/or heard

From the patio in Los Angeles I have heard:

1) gentle owls hoo-hooing every night
2) horse (probably from Lea Thompson’s spread)
3) various birds including one with a big voice like a pterodactyl
4) rooster
5) coyotes almost every night—group howls
6) dogs responding to the coyotes

I have seen:

1) squirrels
2) robin
3) hummingbird (also heard thrumming of its wings)
4) slug
5) coyote—tonight we were driving home from a burger place on Ventura called The Counter (Matthew Perry was there but I ignored him—I’m mad at him and he knows why) and as we turned onto our street I saw an animal at the curb. (And please—this street is not out in the boonies. It is near Wilacre Park, but it’s all big manicured places, mostly gated compounds and home to George Clooney and Teri Hatcher and other such types. AlexTrebek is right around the corner on Fryman.) Thom said it was a cat. I said I didn’t think so and I made him stop the car because the animal was following us and almost under a street lamp, and when it was into the pool of light it clearly was, as Thom said, “so totally a coyote”. Thom said the lone coyote goes around the streets trying to get some dumb dog to chase it and then the coyote chases the dumb dog back to the waiting pack. Wiley coyote or what.

This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2010.