Not a large one, maybe a female or young male.
Looked healthy, it's beautiful coat puffed up against the cold.
Obviously on familiar ground, it checked the woodpile, the shed, the perimeter of the house.
I wondered why I had not seen one in over a decade.
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I wrote this to participate in a flash writing hoe-down that happens every Friday over to Mr. KnowItAll. It's called Friday Flash 55. Most of the entries seem to be of the verse type. I like sentences, so I used 5 of them. I like Flash writing. It is tougher than it looks.
The image was taken by Daniel J Cox. I hope he does not mind me borrowing it, poaching it, using it. I would offer a link, but when I punched the image on google, I was sent to Daily Kos. Odd that a Fisher image would be linked to a commie web site. But there it is.
Some Fisher facts.
Though not big, these guys are bad ass. They are omnivores and will eat just about anything. They are one of the few predators that can take out porcupines unscathed. They spend most of their time on the ground, but climbing trees is a cinch. They are fast enough and agile enough to chase down squirrels up there in the canopy. Do not mess with one. Steer clear.
Later.................................................................
11 comments:
Mr. Macrum...
Welcome to the Friday Funfest!
Loved your Fisher Story. Growing up in Michigan, we used to refer to them as Fisher Martins. I wonder if they still refer to that old term?
I hope you found this writing prompt to be challenging, creative, and FUN! Please join us again, have a Kick Ass Week-End
I would wonder as much where one came from after so much time.
Thanks for dropping by. I hope you will do many more 55's. Yes, flash is a challenge, but fun. I do both the sentence variety and the poetry kind, depending on my mood.
To be honest I wouldn't know a fisher from a weasel (to urban here).
I still hang around the blogsphere but only on fridays.
I think the NFL will die a slow death. I mean come on $4000 for a Super Bowl ticket!
I never could quite figure out where you are politically but let me say they're all corporate whores. Until we get the money out of politics nothing will change. On that note I don't follow anything on corporate owned main stream media about politics.
The Fisher sounds like a fascinating animal. They were recently reintroduced back into Olympic National Park.
We saw an animal on our back porch a few months ago that I thought was either a fisher or someone's escaped ferret. I googled both animals; it didn't look anything like a ferret. The animal we saw was more smooth-haired than the pictures I've seen of fishers, but it could have been a younger one. I've never seen any animal so quick and agile. I could easily picture it running up and down trees and catching squirrels.
G-Man - Thanks for sponsoring the flash.
Here in Maine we call them Fishers or Fisher Cats, even though they are not feline but come from the weasel family.
Audrey - Fishers are very elusive and secretive. I have seen them in the woods but not in my immediate area for a long time. Someone told me that when the coyotes moved in, the Fishers moved out. I guess they were wrong.
Thanks for swinging by and for sure I will try my hand at another 55 flash in the future.
Demeur - Fishers come from the same family as weasels.
They(NFL, MLB, NHL, etc.) are indeed all corporate whores, which is why I definitely feel they do not deserve tax free status.
Not sure where I come down politically? That's excellent. That tells me that I am pretty successful at sitting somewhere in the middle. Although my extreme disgust with the Right in recent years has pushed me left of center for sure.And even though I have issues with both sides, I feel that at least the Left seems to be concerned with the welfare and interests of the whole country, not just a small percentage of the population.
Tom Harper - You might have seen a weasel. But of course, I am no expert. Was it bigger than a couple of pounds? If so, I probably was not a weasel.
You are right M, fisher cats are souped-up weasels and can grow big enough to be dangerous. They will kill house cats if they are in an urban area. I doubt a single coyote could take one out; and I don't know if they climb trees - but that wouldn't surprise me.
the Ol'Buzzard
We had a fisher here a couple months ago. It was digging around in the snow for windfall apples. It also climbed an apple tree and was looking at how to get at the suet feeder I have for the birds. The suet feeder is on a metal post about 3/4 feet from the apple tree. After a while it climbed down, it was very nimble climbing up and down.
An old trapper once told me that, "If fishers were the size of German Shepherds, nobody would dare go out in the woods.
Another member of the weasel family that can kill porcupines is the wolverine. That bad ass just flips them over and rips out the belly. A black bear will circle around a wolverine rather than face it.
Looks like an interesting fellow. Good 55. I don't really see any Fishers around here (Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin).
I saw a fisher in the woods once. It was chasing a whitetail fawn. This was in early summer so the fawn was still quite young; I had no doubt that if the fisher caught it, the fawn was going to be lunch. They can be pretty aggressive hunters.
And Kulkuri is remembering the wrong weasel. We had a pine marten in the yard. Martens are cute; fishers are scary.
Hello there. I enjoyed your description of the fisher, written in sentences as in prose-poem style. I sometimes write sentences for my 55s also.
I am so glad you saw one after many years, and hope they thrive and visit you again.
Nicely done - He does have a glare of a stare - He looks quite stout!
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