Wildlife in the neighborhood

mr2s2000elise said:

Our neighborhood has 

 

• deer
• bear
• mountian lion 
• coyotes 
• raccoon 

we can't put trash out - without bears just decimating them night before 

That list plus eagles, hawks, the odd hitchhiking wolverine, in the nearby waters seals, orcas and more. If you go a bit further north maybe 50 miles or so there is rumours that Grizzlys and wolves are beginning to establish themselves.

The most amusing thing that happened with backyard wild life is this:

My wife (girlfriend at the time) called me AT WORK a long while back to report there was an animal in the back yard. It was cat sized, but it wasn't a cat, it wasn't a raccoon and it wasn't an opossum. Nor was it a gray fox, small dog or anything else.

I asked, "Is it fat and brown?"

She agreed that it was very fat and brown. I advised her that it was probably a groundhog. After a quick image lookup, she agreed it was, and was ridiculously excited because she'd never seen one in person before, just in pictures and on TV.

 found this incredible, but it turns out that they're not native to the area where she grew up in NC. Now, they're one of her favorite wild critters to spot, and she gets super excited *every time* she sees one.

I get pretty much the same list as MR2s2000elise with the fun addition of diamond head rattlers. A lot of diamond head rattlers. We get some bobcats and our deer are big. They are mule deer. Just down the street, you see Bighorn Sheep. 

We had a raccoon. Would get the neighbor's trash, and bring it up on our deck for a picnic (2nd story). I peed everywhere for weeks. It hasn't been back in a year. Gotta show em who the alpha is. with pee.

Lots of reptiles and amphibians living under the siding, in the garage, or in the bushes within feets of my house.  Green anoles, blue tailed skinks, some other dark brown skinks with a copper/bronze stripe down the center, Mediterranean house geckos, green tree frogs, gray tree frogs, toads, and several versions of non-poisonous snakes.  Further from the house, but still in the yard I regularly see squirrels, rabbits, opossum, raccoon, box turtles, and deer.  Have seen a rather large gray fox twice. There is a group of ravens (not sure what they are called, I know crows are a "murder") in the neighborhood that I see about 8 am around the cul de sac if I'm home then, lots of hawks overhead, a juvenile peregrine falcon in the front yard once, and I often hear a couple of horny owls in the mornings about an hour before sunrise.  I think that covers most of what I've seen/heard in my yard.

This wee smol boy was in the basil plant.

 

A fox was spotted while walking the dog this morning.  Only concern I had was if she was guarding her young.