Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

Seems like a lot of the critters around here like to hide. 

Our parrot loves to hide under the couch and behind the curtains.

If she can hurry into the kitchen and get in a cupboard before I close the door, that's one of her favorite hiding places.

She gets in all kinds of hidey holes: under desks, in the pantry, in boxes... just any place she can find.

But many of the outside critters like to hide too.  For instance, can you guess what's hiding in this can out in our feed room?

Did you guess a mouse?  Naw, come on now, that's too obvious.  And it's not a snake either, though it's happened before and I've reached in and grabbed one by accident.  (Trust me, I wouldn't grab it on purpose!)

Well, think about it while I show you some other animals in hiding.

Our cat likes to hide under shrubs or other flowering plants.  Here he is hiding in one of my flowerbeds under some hostas.

Toby would like to know what the cat is doing in there.

However, the cat is unconcerned with what Toby wants to know and ignores him.

He continues to peer out from under the hostas totally oblivious to what the dog is doing.

Sometimes animals can hide in plain sight.  You know, blending in with the surroundings, a sort of camouflage kind of thing.  Just look at this picture:

Maybe this rabbit figures if it grazes with the chickens, the dogs won't notice it's there and chase after it.  Frankly, the rabbits around here seem to think this a safe haven anyway, and don't get too excited when we're out walking around.

Of course, little chicks like to hide under the Mama Hen.

You can only see one little derriere still sticking out, but there are 5 little chicks under the hen.  Here they are before Mama settled down so they could scoot under her.

My favorite hen, Peepers, has a little chick peeping out from under her too.

She had 4 little chicks last year, but for some reason, only came out from under the shed (her nesting place) with one this year.

The adult hens like to hide under The Farmer's utility trailer.

 Toby occasionally likes to hide out under the back porch.  The goats hide behind the llamas at night.  There are even little Southeastern Five-Lined Skinks with their bright blue tails hiding in the crevices of the retaining walls around the rosebed.  Critters are hiding all over the place!

Oh, and as for what was hiding in the can. 

Did you guess it was a rooster?  He jumped in there while I was getting feed, and managed to knock the lid back over top of him on his way in.  When I took the lid off, he was contentedly munching up on all the cracked corn.

You just never know what you might find hiding around here... so come out, come out, wherever you are!

Tagged as: cat, chickens, dog, pet parrot, rabbits, Toby, wildlife