(Click on any image for a larger view.)

I’m beginning a photo-log of some of the less damaged animals I find resting along the road.  Here’s the first one I took.  It was too pretty not to.

I’ve seen LOTS of birds (including a large owl), racoons (many), a beaver, squirrels, skunks, coyotes, turtles (snapping and box), rabbits, porcupines, snakes, frogs, salamanders, a house cat, and many indistinguishable splats.  Saw my first deer in South Dakota after seeing many live ones from Connecticut through Ontario (and coming a bike length from hitting one in Pennsylvania).

This snake looked like he might really be resting.  No obvious injury.

This snake I saw in the Black Hills had a curious termination to its tail.  (Yes it was clearly dead.)  I considered taking the rattle, but I thought that might be bad karma.

Many insects as well. Yes, you see things when biking that you don’t when riding other vehicles.

More snakes.

LOTS of birds, though most completely flattened.  I can see how the airflow around a truck doing 80 could easily suck in a bird. Pretty sure the duck’s head and neck were underneath, but I wasn’t about to check.

Wyoming should be called the Squashed Rabbit State.  I saw hundreds of them on I-90.

Considering how utilitarian Americans are, and how tasty rabbit is, I’m surprised our pioneer ancestors didn’t eat them more.  An anti-French thing?  Maybe if we renamed them “Freedom Chickens”?