We all know about the dolphins and whales that are beaching themselves and huge bird and fish die offs, but something really strange happened to me the other day. I was sitting in my upstairs window and noticed a mountain lion right next to the stream below my home!
A half hour later a bear ambled down the same way to the stream and crossed over behind us! You have to understand, we do live in the mountains, but in a community of homes. Bears are not unheard of, certainly, and we have seen them before - but never a mountain lion! In fact, my father who was a big outdoorsman once mentioned that he had never seen a mountain lion in all his years in Nevada. To have both of these animals cross over within a half hour is very, very unusual.
Something else that was very strange happened a few months ago. There was several feet of snow on the ground and a Great Blue Heron landed on the stream, and after several minutes, caught a fish! It then walked up the bank and around the end of the unit of condos that we live in! I have never seen such a bird! And in the middle of the winter at 6,500 ft.? It came back a few weeks later but I didn't see it in time before opening our slider to let our dog out, and it flew off.
Strange, strange stuff going on in the animal world.