Newport Gone Wild?

Here I sit, using a fine-toothed comb to remove a few hundred stubborn clinging little seed pods that have hooked themselves into my fleece pullover and lounge pants. I was attacked by the tiny cling-ons when I waded into my weed-infested back lot to resolve a standoff between my dog Tucker and an alien intruder perched atop the 8-foot back fence. Tucker is the clever canine who so suavely advised me how to handle the bears on the porch in the dream recounted in my last post.

Tucker's got a touch of the wild himself, being an Australian kelpie, or kelpie/cattle dog mix. Either way, he's 100% herding dog, with the body type, genetic trace, and impressive incisors of a dingo, a true proto dog. His beautiful coat is a remarkable all-season personal environment; I have so much respect for its rain-forest-like perfect balance that I've never bathed Tucker, or needed to. But I did have to give him a thorough brushing tonight to get rid of the same seeds that adorned me.

So I was happily - well, not so happily, but okay about it - updating one of the websites I'm mistress of, when Tucker sounded off, and off, and off in the back lot. He has several voices, and this one was the "There's an alien species trying to breach the border of my territory." This is becoming more and more common around here, and it's never a good thing. Interesting, sometimes - like the young possum Tuckie treed in the lilac, but that's a rarity.

Long ago, Tucker appointed himself the neighborhood skunk warden, and I'm pleased to say that there have been very few whiffs around this summer. I should note that Rhode Island may very well have the highest skunk count per square mile of any state in the Union. I used to explain to my Mom that Rhode Island was the only state in the country that had a bivalve (the quahog) as the state bird, and a rodent (the skunk) as the state flower. But the downside of Tucker's anti-skunk campaign is that other species have moved in as the skunks have relocated.

There are possums, as previously mentioned. They've been in the neighborhood for at least five years now. Deer are fairly common on the island, but it's still a surprise to hear of sightings in the city. However, Tucker has located and perfumed himself with deer poop in city parks on two occasions, and let me tell you, it's beyond nasty, plus it has a half-life of many months.

Hawks live in the higher reaches of Newport's church towers. Foxes abound all along the shoreline of the island. Glossy ibis and tricolor herons and swans inhabit our wetlands. The wild turkey population is exploding, and Canada geese are everywhere, carpet-bombing grassy areas with Yorkie-sized poops. There's a well-established mink colony at Sachuest Point.

And the Eastern coyotes - well, the island now sports multiple packs. My son-in-law, Diesel Mike, reports coyote sightings on Bellevue Avenue on almost every one of his daily lunchtime circuits of the Ten-Mile Drive. Over on the Navy base, you can sit on the deck at the Chiefs' Club at sunset and listen to the local pack sing along with the amplified broadcast of Taps. They are widely believed to be responsible for the rising rate of pet cat disappearances. Why, I ask, why can't they prey on all those damn geese?

Raccoons used to live under the porch of the Elks Lodge a block over, but were rousted and went elsewhere. Apparently "elsewhere" was somewhere in, around, or under an unoccupied multi-unit house on Prospect Hill St., which runs up to Bellevue behind my house. Now the multi-unit is being totally rehabbed, and it seems the 'coons are on the street again. My neighbors have found scat in their yard, and a fairly hefty animal broke a branch, flattening a mound of hostas beneath it.

So, while Tucker was trying to dislodge the critter atop the fence, I called my neighbor two doors down, whose back fence continues mine. As she flashlit her way to her back fence to get a look at whatever it was, she mentioned that the neighbor three doors down had recently seen a fisher cat descending a nearby tree trunk. He ID'd the dimly seen animal as a fisher cat because it was climbing down headfirst, an unusual ability made possible by its sharp-clawed hind paws, which can swivel 180 degrees.

"Fisher cat" is a New-Englandism; the animal's name is actually just fisher, a colloquialization of the French word fichet, a European polecat. It's a member of the Mustelids, which include wolverines, weasels, and those cute little ferrets. Adult fishers are similar in size and coloring to raccoons, although there's no relationship. Head and ear shapes are similar, and both varmints have long, bushy tails. 'Coons, of course, have the distinctive eye mask and ringed tail, which fishers do not. And just like the aforementioned Eastern coyotes, the fisher population in Rhode Island has gone from zero to thriving in recent years. Reports of fisher attacks on dogs and other domestic animals have piled up from all over the state, reinforcing their ferocious reputation.

Still, I hadn't heard of fishers on the island up until now. I tried to get some more light on the animal with my headlamp and flashlight, but couldn't get a good look at its face because it was backlit by security lights on an adjacent building. Nor could I see a tail of any kind, ringed or otherwise. Meanwhile, Tucker was still growling and barking fiercely, lunging at the fence below the critter, which wasn't budging. My neighbor, still on the phone as she tried to get a look through a screen of tree branches, said she thought she saw a mask. That made me a little less anxious - if I had to choose between a raccoon and a fisher, I'd vote for the raccoon any day, in spite of their known ability to kill a dog or cat if cornered.

To try to break the standoff, I picked up the hoe that lives next to my compost bin, waded deeper into the weeds, and gave the fence a couple of good whacks. The critter apparently didn't like the vibrations and noise, because it started creeping toward the junction of my fence with the neighbors', giving my neighbor a somewhat better view. She confirmed that it was indeed a raccoon, to the relief of both of us.

As the 'coon continued its meander out of his territory, Tucker elected to stand down and finally come to my call. Whew! I shooed him back into the house, gave him some well-deserved treats for a job well done, brushed the grabby seeds out of his coat, and settled in to remove same from my garments. Then I followed up by googling fishers and raccoons, which answered some questions - are there fishers in Little Rhody? Yep. Are they really bad-asses? Kinda. Can raccoons go down a tree headfirst? Aha! Yes, they can, for the same reason as fishers, so the recent sighting might have been a raccoon. Are there fishers living on Aquidneck Island, in my neighborhood? Can't answer that one yet, but I'd sure like to know. Stay tuned!