Critters in Paradise...

Living in paradise, here in Cuyutlan, comes with a few 'blips' that we don't encounter or encounter very infrequently in BC.

When Meg and I first arrived at our newly constructed casa four years ago, the first really big surprise was the number of scorpions that had moved in, onto and around the house. I suppose we should have realized that house construction means digging lots of sand which disturbs long established scorpion 'homes' in the 'hood. We soon found that we were having to swat/squish way more of these angry little critters than we ever expected...17 in those first 3 months. See 'All Creatures Great and Small' . We also found that, due the odd seemingly insoluble chemical makeup of scorpion guts, we were looking to decorate our walls in a particular shade of khaki to camouflage the paint-resistant remnants. Fortunately we found that lots of scrubbing with plenty of elbow grease, soap, and a coarse brush saved us from olive green surroundings.


Then there was the time we also had a rare bird drop in for the evening...see 'A Very Unexpected Visitor' .


This year turned into the 'Year of the Mouse'...not this famous Mexican Mouse

but this one...and hordes of his familia y amigos. They moved in while we were away and seemed to be extremely resistant to finding different lodgings on our return. Although we found many telltale reminders of their travels through the kitchen, and many holes in the linens and consequent nests to show that they had been through our storage bins, the one spot that I continually found the little critters was in the washing machine. Don't ask me why but inevitably every time I lifted that lid there was a party going on. 

One morning Meg called me over to the machine, after she had loaded and started the wash cycle, to see a bedraggled, wide-eyed rodent perched on top of the wash, slowly rotating around the tub during the rinse cycle. I had become adept at capturing these little guys, usually using either a yogurt  container and lid or the more direct grabbing of the tail, then marching them across the road to large bush where a big iguana hung out. 

I thought that perhaps the iguana would dispatch the plump furry creatures until it was pointed out to me that this iguana was a vegetarian. At times the mice would hightail it back across the road and into the yard before it could. 


Another morning I found a mouse doing the `Dead Mouse Float` in the upstairs toilet...

and not too long after that I awoke to a rustling by my bed, thinking that a big bug was scuttling about. On closer search with my flashlight, I came eye-to-eye with yet another furry fellow. This time I had had enough...grabbed it by the tail...rushed outside and bangety-bangety-bang bashed it against the bricks on the deck and tossed it over the wall. I no longer capture and release...it`s survival of the biggest with opposable thumbs.





I`m not as ruthless with many of the other visitors - ants and cockroaches are the exceptions...I am fascinated with some of the bugs that choose to wander through the yard...like this stick bug (about 8 inches long and, surprise, surprise,incredibly stick-like!)

I always enjoy watching the resident tribe of small lizards that race around the yard and really appreciate the besocunas, the geckos who hang around the casa making lip-smacking noises in the shadows.

We also see lots and lots of buzzards soaring overhead looking for lunch or whatever - roadkill or washed up turtles...it`s always a little unnerving to see them mulling around the neighbouring yards and houses, looking like undertakers in the tropics...



One last note of the mouse situation... Meg found some of those super sticky cardboard pads to stop the critters in their path. We positioned a few around the casa and this is what I was horrified to find one morning. It`s a Mexican milk snake - similar to a coral snake - one creature I had never expected inside and hope never to see again. Yikes, I hate snakes!!