{"id":36163,"date":"2024-01-24T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=36163"},"modified":"2024-01-23T01:46:24","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:46:24","slug":"just-once-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2024\/01\/just-once-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Just once, part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/PalmerSkunk.jpg\" alt=\"skunk, possibly striped skunk Mephitis mephitis, foraging in yard\" width=\"750\" height=\"601\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22923\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>I find it hard to believe this myself, but not only have I featured a skunk only once here on the blog, I think I have just <em>one<\/em> other set of images in my entire stock, from many years ago, of a juvenile that had been live-trapped.<\/p>\n<p>For reasons unknown and completely perplexing, skunks are incredibly scarce in this area of North Carolina, and bear in mind that I used to work with both animal rescue and wildlife rehabilitation, as well as advising about wildlife encounters. Throughout all of that, to say nothing about being a photographer and <em>wanting<\/em> to get more images of them, the actual contacts that I&#8217;ve had were just barely enough to maintain that they existed and little more. There was <em>one<\/em> section of the whole region where I suspected they might be, if not prevalent, at least present in small numbers, and that was from smelling their evidence there perhaps three times in over a decade.<\/p>\n<p>This image of a (likely) striped skunk (<em>Mephitis mephitis<\/em>) was therefore taken in Ohio, in the suburban front yard of friends of mine, and my exposure to one had been so many years previous that I was peering at this black animal for too long, trying to determine what it was &#8211; granted, it was night and the skunk hadn&#8217;t yet revealed the white spot on its head, but still. I was nonetheless delighted, knowing that skunks are actually pretty mellow and require a fair provocation before they&#8217;ll let loose with their defensive spray.<\/p>\n<p>Twice while up in New York a few years ago I found skunks, both during the day, yet neither time able to snag a photo. One had emerged from deep weeds right alongside the car while I was stopped in a wildlife refuge, but I was unable to focus in time before it realized I was there and disappeared back into the weeds, never to be seen again &#8211; it would have been a great portrait, too. Three decades back when I lived there and used to go out for walks on the road at night, I encountered them a few times with never any defensive response<strong>;<\/strong> one realized that I was following it down the road and turned to face me quite deliberately, alert but not yet threatened, and continued on its way once I&#8217;d held still for a few moments. You gotta admire that kind of panache&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I find it hard to believe this myself, but not only have I featured a skunk only once here on the blog, I think I have just one other set of images in my entire stock, from many years ago, of a juvenile that had been live-trapped. For reasons unknown and completely perplexing, skunks are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[7567,4614,4613,4615],"class_list":["post-36163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-aint-no-thang","tag-mephitis-mephitis","tag-ohio","tag-striped-skunk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}