NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Wild, Wild Life
Must’ve been a slow news day at NY1, the hyper-local New York City TV news station. Its consumer affairs reporter, Susan Jhun, did a segment on four to six “large” raccoons that migrated from Central Park to a Harlem neighborhood and are terrorizing the residents with such threatening antics as eating garbage, climbing trees and “[W]alking the streets like human beings,” according to one Dorothy Cogle, who adds, “They don't run from you, they stand there and look at you.” A spokesperson for Animal Care and Control essentially told these folks to get a grip: “If someone calls in about a rabid raccoon and Animal Control thinks this animal may have rabies, we will pick it up.” If you click on the video link accompanying the article it’s plain that none of the furry bandits are rabid, and there is little risk that anyone will be “attacked.”
Editorial Note: The flibbertigibbets interviewed by NY1 had better steer clear of The Stiletto’s hood. Every summer, we get a murder of crows taking up residence, each of which is almost a foot high and has a wingspan at least double that. Perched on the telephone wires (yes, there are quaint pockets of NYC where telephone poles still stand and wires crisscross from one side of the street to the other - just like in “the country”), they glare malevolently down at passing pedestrians. Their caws can be deafening, but their ultra-high gloss feathers - which are an order of magnitude blacker than the blackest black you’ve ever seen - are so beautiful The Stiletto can put up with the cacophonous din. As an added bonus, pigeons (or, “rats with wings,” as Gothamites refer to them) steer clear of her neighborhood year-round.
Man, those feathers make great flys for us fly fishers. Just shoot the Crow/Raven with an air gun and harvest the feathers!
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