24 January 2012

Pickups and Roadkill


Vogel. Dutch for bird. Yesterday morning and again this morning at 5:00 a.m., I heard a vogel singing his little heart out. Pitch dark outside. After about a minute or two it stopped. Perhaps one of the other roosting vogels informed the singer that it wouldn't be dawn for at least 3 hours.

Vogels. Pretty much all the wildlife we see here.

We live on a busy city street. One morning I heard a flock of seagulls making quite a ruckus outside. There must have been at least 15. All of them - swarming around in a circle outside our 2nd floor window, flying up to dodge the traffic, diving back down . . . for a prized partial baguette.

Apparently there is no Dutch word for ruckus.

Wildlife. There are no frogs or lizards or snakes. Even outside the city, a rabbit from time to time, but no raccoons or opossums, skunks or armadillos.

Just the vogels.

While at home for Christmas we noted a few things we'd nearly forgotten about . . . like pickup trucks and roadkill. With petrol at around $10 per gallon and most pickups getting about 15 mpg, it's no wonder.

As for the roadkill . . . I guess the only thing we'll see is the occasional mallard duck. Seriously. I'm not sure where they come from, but I have seen a few . . . as roadkill.

Eend. Dutch for duck.

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