Nature In Your Backyard

[RadGuy 1,614]

What kind of animals do y'all see in your yards and neighborhoods?

 

Living in a suburb of Chicago, I don't get to experience much.

Squirrels are widespread here, as in much of the US. We have a family of rabbits in our backyard. We occasionally see foxes in my area - my cousin who lives a couple blocks down said they once had a fox den in his backyard.

 

But that's about as much as it gets here.

My aunt who lives further west into the suburbs occasionally has coyotes in her neighborhood.

 

What about you guys? Anything interesting?

[Joey Russ 7,229]

Not in my backyard, but I just found a dead mouse in my room. 

[Paul Bearer 6,111]

Right now, about 30 sparrows feeding on some bread and seeds I threw out for them. Sometimes get a couple of doo's and a few starling.  Occasionally I see a rat foraging for some food. 

[Paul Bearer 6,111]

* A doo in Scotland is a pigeon. 

[Death Impends 8,007]

Squirrels, chipmunks, and various birds are all common in my backyard, with rabbits appearing less frequently.

 

Deer are occasional sightings around the neighborhood, and the most nearby park houses a large number of geese. There are also some turtles inhabiting a small pond at said park.

[bladan 293]

4 minutes ago, Paul Bearer said:

Right now, about 30 sparrows feeding on some bread and seeds I threw out for them. Sometimes get a couple of doo's and a few starling.  Occasionally I see a rat foraging for some food. 

Pity is a disease. Get a shotgun & ammo

[TQR 14,408]

Foxes, mostly. They’re dicks. Few squirrels too but the dog keeps launching herself outside to chase them off.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

1.  This desert hare was hopping around the oil rig the past couple days.  A somewhat common occurrence.  Saw a jackrabbit too, hoping to get a pic.  (Bonus: that’s the CreepMobile in pic).

2.  Millipedes everywhere too about 6 weeks ago.  About 7” long in that photo.  I got lots of strange critters pics from the deserts of West Texas.  

 

“That’s not your back yard, Sir Creep”.  Aye, ‘tis seeing as I’m on the rigs 75% of the time.

SC

 

[Handrejka 1,904]

Sparrows, wagtails and noisy, evil, bastard gulls.

[TQR 14,408]

There is not a single bit of that millipede that I like 

 

Not quoting it so I don't have to see it again.

[Toast 16,155]

Lots of different birds, especially wood pigeons, unfortunately.  Noisy clumsy great oafs. 

Rabbits - thankfully rarely in the garden these days since better fencing installed.

Hedgehogs.  Current dog is a wuss, doesn't know what they are and just barks at them.  Previous dog (JRT) used to bring them into the house, blood all over him (his own).  His sidekick (greyhound) preferred to try and open them with her paws, which led to her gouging huge pits in the lawn.  Hedgehogs invariably win all these encounters.

Mice - they get on the bird feeders.  Recently tried to set up home indoors, but we think they have been successfully ousted.

Rats, obviously, but rarely seen. 

Moles, ditto.

Occasional grey squirrel.

Went out with dog the other day on to path accessed from garden.  I noticed a roe deer in the adjacent hayfield.  I passed the field and turned into the lane at the bottom.  In the distance was a dude on a bike coming towards me.  My dog chases bikes, so I was rooting around in my bag for the lead when the deer leapt over the fence just to my left, clocked the dude on the bike, turned in my direction, clocked me, and leapt over the fence on the other side of the path into a barley field.   That doesn't happen often!

[Clorox Bleachman 2,455]

New neighbour!

 

 

I'd never seen a wild hedgehog alive until Sunday. Now it's a nightly routine to leave food out for these 3 wee guys. Tonight the two older ones were angrily snorting at each other for about half an hour. Friggin adorable.

 

[Heef 166]

Mainly sparrows, blackbirds, silvereyes, the occasional tui.

 

Used to get a few hedgehogs, but the big DOC200 rat trap seems to have taken them all out. Shame, I like hedgehogs but they are an invasive pest here. Should catch 'em and send 'em in the post to Blighty - I understand you're running a bit short over there.

[Sir Creep 7,070]

6 hours ago, The Quim Reaper said:

There is not a single bit of that millipede that I like 

 

Not quoting it so I don't have to see it again.

LOL oh c'mon QR they just want to be friends with everyone.  They don't hurt (I think )

Edit: I see it's a bit large, but if you had say a 12" monitor I bet it's close to life-like size.

[Toast 16,155]

I found a jet black millipede in one of my kitchen cupboards once.  Scared the shit out of me. 

[Grim Up North 3,727]

Sparrows, tits (various), blackbirds, thrushes, finches, starlings (but a lot less than 20 years ago), treecreepers and wood pigeons. The occasional hawk - exciting when that appears.

 

Bees, wasps, bluebottles, flies, butterflies, ants, woodlice, furry caterpillars (the insect world is much neglected in the discussion up to now other than huge millipedes)

 

Bats in the dusk.

 

Occasional hedgehogs.

 

And frigging cats  - next door's and random ones from Christ knows where.

[Toast 16,155]

Oh yes, I have bats - I love to see them.

Somewhere I have a complete list of all the bird varieties seen in (or over) the garden within the last few years.

[theoldlady 2,313]

We have magpies and sparrows who visit Daily. Swallows when in season. There are hawks and sea eagles that make fly-bys almost every Day. Swans are in the Bay. There are Wild/forest pigeons. A fox was spotted in our garden one Day while we were on vacation. There are deer in the woods by our road. Yesterday I looked up and there were geese flying south for the winter. (This is Southern Norway.)

 

We also have a Forest Cat(skogskatt) that visits and asks for food each Day - have no idea where he lives - been giving him snacks for the past 4 Years.

[Cat O'Falk 3,290]

Frogs. I don't have a pond, my neighbours don't have a pond and yet we have frogs.

 

The back door is usually wide open during the summer months and many times I've caught them in the kitchen. When I water the flower beds they are in there and start croaking.

 

One summer afternoon I was planting in the back garden and it started raining. An old tea-tray I used to carry the potted plants on was left out overnight. It filled up with rainwater and the following morning it was full of frogspawn. I put it in a bucket and emptied it in a brook about 500 metres away.

 

Where the bloody hell do they come from?

[Grim Up North 3,727]

31 minutes ago, Cat O'Falk said:

An old tea-tray I used to carry the potted plants on was left out overnight. It filled up with rainwater and the following morning it was full of frogspawn.

 

You should have had it toad away.

[En Passant 3,743]

33 minutes ago, Cat O'Falk said:

Where the bloody hell do they come from?

When a daddy frog loves a mummy frog ever so much....

 

3 minutes ago, Grim Up North said:

You should have had it toad away.

Groan.

[time 8,626]

My back yard is particularly small (about 4 metres by 2 metres and entirely enclosed with high walls. The only wildlife I've seen in the actual yard in thirty-plus years are herring gulls who have stupidly landed there and can't get out because there's insufficient room to launch a take-off run.

 

The most recent occurrence was a couple of weeks ago - a young gull was squawking out there early one Sunday so my next door neighbour rescued it in a box and took it to the park.

 

I've seen a squirrel sitting on next-doors fence.

[Toast 16,155]

21 minutes ago, time said:

My back yard is particularly small (about 4 metres by 2 metres and entirely enclosed with high walls.

 

So, it's an actual back yard, and not a garden which is what us Brits are talking about?

While we're here, can any Americans please enlighten me - what is a garden in the US?  Because what we refer to as our garden is what you call your yard.

We use 'yard' for mainly industrial spaces.

[Grim Up North 3,727]

39 minutes ago, Toast said:

 

So, it's an actual back yard, and not a garden which is what us Brits are talking about?

While we're here, can any Americans please enlighten me - what is a garden in the US?  Because what we refer to as our garden is what you call your yard.

We use 'yard' for mainly industrial spaces.

 

I've asked this when I've been to US - they call all the area round the house a yard and would have a front yard and back yard as we would have a front garden and back garden.

 

They use garden to represent a specific area within the yard where they are growing flowers - which we would call a flower bed within a garden.

 

(some American will probably come along now and tell me that's completely wrong but that's what I was told).

[Paul Bearer 6,111]

Oh yes, bats. We have 3 of them that fly regularly past our back door. I assume it's daddy, mummy and junior. Fantastic to watch.