Animal planet

Published 12:01 am Saturday, September 10, 2011

The other white meat: A 20-foot crocodile that weighs more than a ton and was captured and is now kept in an enclosure in the Philippines is concerning its keepers because it hasn’t eaten in six days. When offered a dead chicken the croc refused to budge.

It’s not that the croc isn’t hungry, but its mother always told it not to snack between meals of zookeeper.

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Chim chim cheree: Vaux’s swifts, which like to take shelter during their migration in tight spaces, have returned to their vacation home in an unused chimney at Frank Wagner Elementary School in Monroe. Counts of the birds so far show that fewer have arrived than in past years.

Some birdwatchers speculate that some of the swifts have found a new roost, while others think the birds are waiting for gas to get below $3.50 a gallon before starting their journey south.

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That trick never works: Crews in a Swedish town had to use a crane to bend a tree low enough to free a drunken moose that got caught in the branches when it went after the tree’s fermented apples. Moose, said a natural museum guide, love apples and can smell fermenting fruit from a great distance.

Rocket J. Squirrel apologized for not keeping a closer watch on Bullwinkle.

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