Meeting Up with Old Friends By Chance

It was a happy and pleasant surprise to meet old friends by chance few days ago.

We met often on our morning walks before the covid pandemic hit us.

They are the off-leash, well-behave, gorgeous 9-year-old brother and sister Huskies, Winter and Aki.

These two are so loved and well taken care of by their owner. Just look at their well-maintained fur.

Here they are heading home after their walk in the forest reserve and each day on a different route.

Female Aki

Male Winter (obvious why he is named so)

Discarded Box

Walking downhill, our human saw a cardboard box discarded a few feet away from the path.

It had numerous punctured holes on all four sides.

The first thought that came to our human's mind was that it probably had a small animal in it.

Our human sent the picture to brother and niece; both love hiking and had walked here before during their vacation.

Brother said it probably had a bird to be set free while niece said it could be a cat.

Let use hope it was a bird and not a cat. It would be disastrous if it was a cat as the den of a large pack of stray dogs is nearby.

Brown Beetle

Few days ago, a hiker pointed at an old tree stump stool.

Our human's eyes followed and quickly snapped its photo with a finger for comparison.

It is the first time our human saw this brown beetle and later google searched the image.

The name that cropped up in bug guide was 'Genus Anomala'.

Scorpion Sighting

Last week on one of the morning walks, our human came across a rather depressing sight, a dead scorpion.

With one of its claws detached, you could not help wondering what could have possibly happened. Was it attacked by a wild animal or human?

It brought back memories of the first encounter a few years back.

Scorpions are sensitive creatures.

Sensing human, it raised its tail and claws in defence. Our human stood absolutely still, took out the cellphone with utter slow movements to snap this picture.

After a short while, that scorpion turned and scurried down the gulley.

Few weeks later, that area was bulldozed and our human did not know whether the scorpion survived or not.

Hanging Out on the Branches

It was raining. Our human could not go for morning walk and kept gazing at the hill.

Something interesting nearby caught our human's eyes and realised that those on the branches were not leaves but birds resting on the branches so exposed to the rain.