Towheeblog

It’s an ordinary idiom from my childhood–“playing possum.” Pretending to be immobile, dead or asleep.
I suggest an even more useful (in the age of social media) idiom–“going killdeer.” That would entail showing off your butt to amaze or deflect a threat.

This Killdeer is likely nesting around the Fairview Wetlands. When Lexi the dog and I arrived Sunday, it was upset, even thiough Lexi was on a leash. Killdeer generally don’t paniuc around people. We are slow and clumsy in their world of ground speed. But a dog? Clearly a dangerous predator with twice as many legs as most Killdeer. We were apparently too close so this bird ran past us and flopped onto the ground in front of us. Collapsed and displayed its rouge rump with bold white trim. Look at me. I’m dying. Here’s yoiu easy prey, dog. Of course, had we approached the bird would have flown thirty feet, then crashed to the ground, again. Leading us further and further from the nest on the ground somewhere in the vicinity. Got some danger on Facebook or Instagram? Time to go killdeer?!

Before we got to Fairview we drove up a back street in our neighborhood and saw:

Not a native brush rabbit. I pulled over, parked, and photographed. The nearest people-neighbor noticed and said, “Oh, that’s Little Bunny Poo-Poo.” Oh, I replied, fertilizes your garden does he? Yeah, been around about eight months.
What a relief. Last fall we saw, probably, this bunny near Clark Creek Park. A couple times. Then…vanished. In keeping with the daily news, we feared the worst. Run over. Eaten. Now we know Poo-Poo has found a safe retreat. An empty lot with lotsa brush and weeds. Garden nearby for harvesting. And he can out-run a turkey, or even Killdeer, so not to worry.

That final image shows the sporing “flowering” of a ponderosa, the budding that will become this year’s cone crop.