North American Wildlife and Cars Built before ABS...

As a keen writer of adventure stories, I have often used the phrase: "The car slewed to a halt."

Until tonight, I'd never actually experienced it. However, driving home at 10pm on Veronica Avenue, I suddenly found two deer caught helplessly in my headlights.

Even before my brain focused the thought "I'm never going to stop in time," my foot had slammed on the brake pedal and two tons of Detroit steel tried to dig her heels in.

There was a Hollywood-esque squeal of tires and the car slewed - yes, 'slewed', across the road, eventually coming to a halt at a 45 degree angle to where she'd started.

Maybe - at a generous guess - six inches from the flank of one startled deer.

Chewing cud, they ambled off while I sat there, gripping the big wooden steering wheel in shock.
Two thoughts...

1. Thank goodness I was sober, paying attention and going well under the speedlimit.
2. Blimey, that never happened to me in England...

And it does... Happen in England, I mean. There are deer there and presumably they are no smarter or less suicidal than their American cousins. But after six months of settling into American life - being surprised by the similarities rather than the differences - it suddenly occurred to me just how different the wildlife is here (whether or not it's splattered over the bonnet of your Lincoln.)

Deer are one thing... But did you know there are bears here, too?

In fact, bears are a growing problem in New Jersey. The militant anti-hunting brigade has been so successful that a growing population of black bears are making incursions into populated territory. The New Jersey DEP just released a flyer about how to bear-proof your home.

Then there are raccoons - who look cute, but carry rabies and root through your rubbish. Possums, who are big rats that scurry through the undergrowth. And chipmunks. Adorable, stripy chipmunks (who I've never actually seen up close.)

Oh, and skunks, too. I'd seen pictures of them, but I'd never seen a skunk until I moved to America.

As it happened, I smelt one before I ever saw it.

Oh, sure. To us Brits, the idea of a skunk being smelly is old news. But just how smelly? It boggles the mind when your nostrils flair, your eyes water and you wonder 'just what the hell is that?"

I've even mentioned groundhogs before. We have one in hibernation somewhere in our yard.

To residents of New Jersey, their wildlife might seem mundane. For a country boy from England, it's like living in a Disney cartoon.

But as much as I love wildlife, my encounter with Bambi and her brother on the road was as close as I intend getting any time soon. If you're on the North American roads this winter, keep a good eye out and keep your speed down.