Friday Cat Skunk Blogging: Frankie Comes to Town

Today, we bring  you a Very Special Episode of Friday Cat Blogging.  Kevin has an affinity for the neighborhood critters, such as skunks, possums, birds, chipmunks, the occasional fox, groundhogs, etc.   He likes to see them happy and healthy.   To that end, he occasionally puts out eats for some of them.  He put up a new bird feeder earlier this summer.  It provides daily eats to numerous of our feathered friends while simultaneously providing entertainment to our cats.

He's not that crazy about squirrels bc, I suspect, they can be such ungrateful little gluttons, eating anything and everything in sight.

A new favorite is 'Frank', who looks to be a perfect example of Mephitis mephitis, the striped skunk.  Here he's eating some peanuts Kevin put out for him.

He doesn't always put food out for him bc he doesn't want Frank to become dependent.  A better view of his stripage:

Frank is the successor to Odie, a beautiful skunk who used to frequent our backyard.  Unfortunately, we have not seen Odie in several months.  The University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web page about the striped skunk tells us that:

Up to 90% of skunks die in their first winter. In the wild skunks may live to be 2 to 3 years old. In captivity they have been known to survive for up to 15 years.

It's possible that Odie is no longer with us since we saw him (or at least we think it was him) last year and this year.  Our friend Carol down a few blocks tells us that her neighbor tells her that they saw a fluffy white skunk recently.  Odie does look a little different from Frank and most skunks we've seen in these parts in that Odie appeared a lot fluffier and a lot whiter.  Perhaps Odie has moved closer to town?  Perhaps the sighting was of a a relative of Odie's?

The first link in this post is from the NJ Audubon Society and tells us that the striped skunk is the only skunk in NJ.  Here's a picture of a striped skunk from the UMich site:

That's a little closer to what Odie looks like: more white, fluffier fur.  This post on the blog, Nature In My Yard, has a lovely picture of a striped skunk who looks very much like Odie in that his stripes were so wide they almost merged.

Check out the spotted skunk:

Spirogale putorius (Eastern spotted skunk):

Spirogale gracilis (Western spotted skunk):

Now those are some fine looking skunks.

This concludes our Very Special Broadcast of Friday Cat Blogging.  Normal broadcasts will resume next Friday.

Comments

[S.Le.]

Nice looking cat, er, skunk you've got there! A real phew-ty!