We got us a panther

Last Sunday I wrote, at the end of a I Heart Macro post, about my neighbor seeing a panther.  This neighbor did put up an infrared camera, but so far she has only seen some fox, birds, and house cats.  But today I spoke to two other neighbors who have definitely seen the panther.  The kids who live on the other side were playing in the woods behind their house and saw it and their uncle saw it also while sitting on the deck behind the house.  Perhaps their will be something on film soon.

The neighbor across the street recently saw a fairly large bobcat on some property he owns on the other side of town, but he estimates it was only 45 lbs.  A Florida panther like the one on the photo below might weigh 130 lbs. and be seven feet long.   The picture shows a Georgia Wildlife Resources Division biologist with the panther shot by a deer hunter three years ago.   Here is a story in which DNA testing positively linked this panther killed and the Georgia-Alabama border to the South Florida population.

source

This is a great story about Florida Panthers in South Georgia.  And here is a fact sheet with video and pictures about the Florida panther (aka, mountain lion, cougar, puma).  According to the fact sheet, we have all the panther's favorite foods in our yard, and the neighbors have two piglets - Peaches and Milkshake - for dessert.  Let's hope he doesn't like corgis.

Why did the whachamacallit cross the road?

finally a good use for dog hair - a corgi hair provides scale to the right of the whachamacallit

I saw this creature in the middle of the road while walking the dogs on Saturday morning.  It was about two inches long and sporting some pretty cool racing stripes.  You can click on any of the photo to view them larger.

coming or going?

whachamacallit was on the northbound (right) side of the road

I live on this beautiful divided boulevard which is planted with live oaks, camellias, azaleas, and a vast dying array of dogwoods.  These live oaks are enormous.  That is a fairly tall street light in front of it and the bushes behind the tree are about 12 ft. tall.  The photo above shows the low spot in the road.  An animal path runs from the woods behind the houses on the left (unseen) into the swampy woods on the right.  Crossing the road in this spot during the early morning and night, we see fox, coyote, and armadillo (who don't really cross, but just bumble about near the edges of the grass eating bugs).  My neighbor swears she has seen a Florida panther cross.  We do have bobcat, but she believes it was a panther.  Yesterday she told me she bought an infrared camera.  I'm looking forward to getting a glimpse of what is lurking at night!

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