Friday Five:The Wild Animal Edition!

Mompriest reports on a family of bobcats in her desert neighborhood, and invites us to "share a wild animal story from your life." In April 2008 (pre-Ike), the Scientist, his mom, and I went for a hike in the San Bernard Wildlife Refuge, down in Brazoria County. The prairies and wetlands of coastal Texas are a birder's paradise in the spring, and water birds like this heron are abundant.
Not only birds thrive in these marshes. We spied this guy waiting patiently for dinner!
When we returned to the parking area, we happened to see two Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists who were weighing, measuring, and banding a young hawk they had trapped.
The hawk was not too happy about its situation...
but remained calm despite the handful of folks who had gathered (at a respectful distance) to watch.
If birds can feel relief, I'm sure it was relieved when the biologists let it go and we watched it soar out of sight.
Here's a bonus. We've had several fairly close encounters with deer: that's not difficult in the Texas hill country, where they have lost much of their fear of people and will ravage your flower beds!

Farther west, though, one seldom has a chance to get as close as we were during this 2006 hike in Big Bend.
Edited to add: The Italian island of Capri is named for the wild goats that still roam its rocky hills. We took a boat trip around the island one day on our 2007 Italian grand tour, and there they were! You may have to enlarge this picture to get a good view of them.