Buffalo Chips Wild Animals Page

BUFFALO CHIPS & COMPANY

Wild Animals of Arizona

There's nothing like watching and learning from wild critters!

PRONGHORN ANTELOPE

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DEER

There are at least two species of deer in Arizona. The whitetail and the mule deer. The whitetail deer is found mostly in the southern part of the state and according to the State Game & Fish Department has produced a recently discovered sub-species called coues deer. While the whitetail deer is generally smaller than the mule deer, the coues deer is tiny! I have seen full grown bucks with an antler that had 4 tines on one side that if I placed it in my hand it wouldn't extend past my fingers! The deer probably wouldn't weigh over 20 lbs. I wonder if that's where the legend of the jackalope came from?

Mule deer in Arizona range over most of the state. They seem to do equally well in the towering ponderosa pine tree forests as in the Sonoran desert. A good sized one here would weigh in just a little over 200 lbs.

COYOTE

The headlights were having difficulty piercing the quiet, heavy blackness of the night as we drove east on Highway 89A. Fawn, (my daughter) and I had been helping a friend introduce two cantankerous Kiger Mustang mares to their new boyfriend. One of those mares decided that the boyfriend we had picked for her didn't quite fill out his jeans as well as her last boyfriend did. By the time we got her convinced that even if he didn't, he was way more sensitive!, the night was no longer young, it was at least middle aged as we made our way home to Coyote Springs. We had just passed Roberts Road and out of the gloom of the night we could make out the form of someone's pet cat on the south side of the road. It was crouching with its ears flat against its head doing its best to intimidate something hidden in the bar ditch and out of our sight.

We sped by and the inky envelope of the night snapped closed behind us leaving the cat to travel the mysterious path of its life. Our car forced the bubble of light ahead of us until the familiar cattle guard that marked the next leg of our journey popped into view. The car slowed to navigate the left turn and our headlights fell on yet another cat. This one was darker and was sitting unconcernedly on the right side of the narrow cattle guard. As our two or three tons of iron, steel and glass rushed pass within three feet of the still calm and sitting cat I saw it open it's mouth in an apparent meow of greeting . . . and we were gone.

Fawn and I each talked quietly about the loose house cats as the car negotiated the rough dirt road. We both knew that they wouldn't last too long running outside like that. Some coyotes seem to like cats better than their more normal diet of cottontail and jackrabbits and of course both the cats we saw were right next to a road where they were exposed to the danger of being run over.

Not a hundred yards past the cattle guard on the very edge of our welcome envelope of light some movement caught our eyes. It was the unmistakable form of a coyote trying to outrun the light. The coyote streaked into the darkness and I had the ominous thought that the mysterious trail of the life of at least one of those house cats and that of the coyote would converge that night.

Coyotes are most usually predators of the night, they sometimes hunt during the day but only when driven to it by hunger. They do go deep into areas densely populated by people, (towns and cities) during the night to hunt and scavenge from the pets, pet food and the waste of city dwellers. They are not evil creatures, instead, like every other living thing they must seek nourishment or perish. Like most things with a life to maintain they choose to live and they are just smart enough to see an easy meal unwittingly provided by humans and exploit it. We can't blame a creature for trying to live.

Don't leave any pet food outside at night, keep any small pets, (animals less than about 30 pounds) inside at night. May you and all your pets follow a long and happy "mysterious trail of life".

JAVALINA

When I was a youngster here in Arizona, to see a Javalina, (pronounced "have-a-lean-a") I had to travel to the extreme southern portion of the state. Now they can be found in almost any part of the state.

Friday, 4/27/2001 - Thanks to the infinite wisdom of the Justice System my son Travis and I get to be with each other every other weekend. My ex keeps him in the megalopolis of greater downtown Bagdad, Arizona, (population - maybe 3000). I often leave early so as to have time to explore the desert and mountains of Arizona. This time I had a bit of an adventure involving a family of javalinas. To read the story and see more photos of desert pigs just click on the photo of the charging javalina.

MOUNTAIN LION

Well there are mountain lions in Arizona! I've been stalked, watched, scared and run from by lions. I've never had one actually attack me. I don't doubt that one might. They can be pretty big and mostly they shy away from anything human, but if you hang around in the back country in Arizona long enough you will see one. They're very secretive and hard to see so to see them you've got to get a little wild yourself! They're generally about as tall as a German Shepard dog but their body is longer, and if you count that tail . . . well, they're long. They sometimes let out a scream that sounds for all the world like a woman being killed! When they do that you usually can't see them and they may even be a mile away but it'll scare the bejeebers outa ya!

ROADRUNNER

This is our resident roadrunner. Male and female roadrunners look alike, but I think this is a male because it seems to have established a definite territory. I'll know for sure this spring when mating season starts. During mating season male roadrunners have a very unusual mating call. They sound exactly like a dog begging at the door to be walked! eerr eerr eeerrrrr, kind of high pitched and nasally. The first time I heard it I was walking up to a neighbor's house and I thought he had an unhappy dog on his Roof! I saw the roadrunner up there and as I watched he called again. I couldn't believe he had made that noise, because it sounds so unbird like! As I get more photos of this roadrunner I'll post them and I'll update this site with information as I learn it, ie; if another shows up. Also if it is a male, I'll record his call and put it here.

JACKALOPE

Jackalopes are supposed to be a cross between a jack rabbit, (really a hare) and the pronghorn antelope. It is suposed to look like a bunny with horns. It is of course ficticious. Many of the taxidermists in the Southwestern part of the country mount jackrabbits and add horns as a conversation piece and they can look quite real if done right.

Horned Lizard or Horned Toad

In the Southwest there are many different types of snakes and lizards. One of the more bizarre species of lizard is the one known locally as the Horned Toad. Like all cold blooded creatures they hibernate during the cold months and become active when it begins to warm up. This little guy isn't very old. I found him in my driveway this morning, (5/10/2001) and decided he might be a little better off out in the pasture. I've heard many stories about them squirting blood from their eyes when they are threatened but either I've never been very threatening to them or it's a myth, because I've never seen anything like that happen with them. I have handled them all my life and the worst thing I've had one do is to puff up a little and bite me, (It didn't have any teeth and not even as much pressure as a paper clip would exert on my finger!)

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For more information or just to visit email me atcmfaz@juno.com, call me at 1 (520)775-5812 or snail mail me at Mike Fields, 8185 E. Mountain View, Prescott Valley, Az, 86314.