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Nights have been warm enough to sleep with windows open so when I was awakened by an unfamiliar huffing sound out in the road around 1:50 AM, of course, I had to get up and investigate.........from inside.  I stood at our bathroom window listening and trying to compare it with other familiar sounds so in the morning I could recall the sound and google it.  The huffing reminded me of the deer Mike, Barb, Cliff, and I heard one summer night when sitting on the back porch around 10 PM.  But the immediate "clicking" sound stumped me.  I knew it wasn't the sound of hooves.  Deer are stealth and quiet as they move even when bounding down the mountainside into the forest.  Opossum don't click or huff, turkeys gobble, and it was not the sound of a mountain cat.  I didn't want to just assume it was a bear.  I finally fell back to sleep and when I woke at 6, took my coffee out in the mountain fog and quietly scanned the road for bear scat.  No scat.  If the link below works, this is the sound I heard going up the dirt road at 1:50 AM.  Pretend the link says North Carolina black bear.

Florida black bear sounds - huffing and popping jaws - YouTube

  Just a few minutes ago as I was posting, I heard a scratching sound at the front of house and looked up to see my young squirrel on the ledge of the triangle window at the peak of the house.  He was panicked.  Eyes were opened wide as he tried to figure out how he got himself in this predicament......and how would he get down.  He must have been on the roof, stretched himself down to the window ledge to see what was going on in here then realized it was a long drop the rest of the way down.  


  After testing his reach a few times, he stretched his body until his front paws touched the screen on the side kitchen window then cautiously lowered the rest of his body until he had a firm grip.  From there he still had to choose whether to drop all the way to the ground or take a chance and lunge to the inclined step railing.  This little guy is always up to something.  He's the one that lays on the railing and rests, climbs into the flower pots looking for seed, and is always investigating something on the porch. 





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