Wildlife in your yard.

[MarkLT1]

So who out there has welcomed (and perhaps some not so welcomed) wildlife that passes through your yard?

We are in a somewhat unique situation, in that we have acreage, but are still well within a metro area. We are in a ~1mi x 2mi area that is a mix of woods and prairie, and are all 3-10 acre lots. In the last week (perhaps due to fewer cars on the road?) we have noticed an uptick in our furry friends visiting our yard. We've had:

• Several individual bucks, and a group of 11 doe's/young deer
• 3 Coyotes (not so welcomed)
• A fox has visited 3 times (before this week, we had only seen a fox twice in the 10-years we've lived here)
• A bunch of wild turkeys
• The muskrat we've named "Allen" (Allen has a den right on the edge of our property, we see him often)
• The normal squirrels and rabbits
• A couple of Canada Geese (also not so welcomed... the dogs like their droppings.. ewww)
• 2 now-homeschooled kids (and they just come marching into the house dragging the spring mud, etc.. with them)
• A Bald Eagle that likes to sit up in a pine tree on our property from time to time
• A bunch of other song-birds- goldfinches, cardinals, robins, house sparrows
• The local Pileated Woodpecker (think woody-the-woodpecker)
• Our grumpy neighbor, tromping through his woods, yelling at our kids and dogs (What's new?)

Has anyone else been seeing more wildlife than normal?

 

[Dumbo777]

We have woods behind our house. I have seen quite a bit more deer. I also notice we have a lot more song birds around the house.

 

[BrianL]

I have a pool so I get frogs all the time. They're harmless as long as they don't lay their eggs - this is usually only a problem in early spring when the cover is still on and it rains creating a little pool of untreated water (once chlorine goes in they won't lay eggs). They can be noisy though. I also see and hear a big owl sometimes. I've seen him sitting on my shed and diving board - he's a big fella! I don't always see him, but he must live around here for sure.

 

[pryncess527]

I can’t say more than normal, our garden always draws a lot of birds/squirrels/frogs/insects by design. I can’t take credit, the prior homeowner spent decades cultivating it, I’m just trying to keep it alive! I love seeing them.

 

[eileenjez]

We have deer all the time. Came home one night and there were 4 right by my garage door. Rabbits live under our shed and in the bushes. Assorted birds are always here, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, robins, cardinals, blue jays, and sparrows. Canadian geese are all over the place, they are protected here. We're surrounded by forests but not in the forest.

 

[PollyannaMom]

The muskrat we've named "Allen" (Allen has a den right on the edge of our property, we see him often)

I love that you named him!!

"Our" squirrels, who have been eating from the birdfeeder lately, are Emerson and Whitman.

I also notice we have a lot more song birds around the house.

Same here (in spite of the squirrels.)

 

[DuskKodesh]

Ooh I wish I got to see deer and foxes. We live in a tiny little suburb house and before we got here we'd be lucky to see a bunny. Since we moved in though I stopped what the real estate company was doing with the lawn. No chems, no weed killer now. Planted some local wild plants. We now have regular squirrels that I feed, bunnies that pass through, sometimes an opossum. Saw a woodpecker yesterday, and lots of bugs. I am always careful to leave a pile of leaves in the fall for the moths to nest.

 

[MarkLT1]

I love that you named him!!

"Our" squirrels, who have been eating from the birdfeeder lately, are Emerson and Whitman.

Oh, not only have we named him.. he has an entire Lord of the Rings worthy backstory.

We had a squirrel that frequented our yard when we lived in NJ who was missing his tail. We named him "Stumpy," and he was legendary. His lost tail involved being attacked by an evil Hawk, then being saved by a heroic Bald Eagle named Erland. Stumpy was a general on the front lines of the many wildlife battles that apparently occurred in our tiny NJ back yard.

 

[lorimay]

We live a short distance from the Everglades, we have all kinds of creatures in our lake:

Flying fish, which is fun to see, ducks, love when they glide across the water, turtles, love to watch them swim around.
We also have alligators that swim by periodically and a lot of iguanas.
The alligators are making the wildlife less, unfortunately. I wish they would take care of the iguanas, I hate them.
The alligators freak me out though.

 

[VandVsmama]

We live in AZ. At our old house, we lived sort of near desert preserve land, so we had lots of critters that meandered through our yard on occasion. They included:

coyotes
bobcats
road runners
snakes
lots of lizards big & small - the best ones had shiny blue bellies
quail
javelinas - they'd roam in packs...Mom, Dad, and babies. Often at night. They loved prickly pear cactus.

 

[loves to dive]

We live semi in the country, it's a sub division that was built in the middle of a pasture. We are surrounded by woods and big farm behind us. We see deer all the time, our little Yorkie tried chasing one once so we can't let her out now when they are there. We have coyotes, they are so tame/brave they come right up to the door. Our crusty old neighbor gets out with his gun just about every night chasing them away. Again, we have to go outside first before we let our dog out to make sure they aren't there. We've tried calling fish and game for years and they can't do anything. We have geese who live in the two ponds front and back of us all year round. We have turkey vultures that circle, again have to be close to our little lady when she is outside. The usual birds and chipmunks and squirrels. The other day miss thing chased a squirrel up a tree and the little devil actually set up there and chattered and threw things down on her. It was too funny because she is half blind in one eye and she knew it was up that tree but couldn't find it but she was running in circles and dodging things as they were thrown.

 

[OneOftheB's]

We also live on a couple of acres, as does the rest of my neighborhood (all lots are 2-10 acres). We've seen hawks (cooper & redtail), crows, coyote, bob cat, and the normal suburban fluffies- chipmunks and squirrels. A few years ago there was a black bear sighted on our road by a neighbor. We didn't believe her until a news report came out a few days later about a bear being sighted around our town.

 

[JimMIA]

We live in a densely populated suburb, but only a block from a large county park and county water dept. wellfield -- so we don't have any large critters. For mammals, we have squirrels and feral cats mostly. We also have raccoons and possums passing through, and occasionally a fox. We had a family of possums take up residence years ago, but we trapped them and released them in a protected woodland.

We have lots of birds. Our year-round birds are mockingbirds and grackles, and we always have both black and turkey vultures soaring around overhead. During the winter, we get a big influx of various types of raptors -- several varieties of hawks and occasionally a Peregrine Falcon. We also get lots of cardinals and blue jays in the winter.

For reptiles, we have hundreds of lizards of several species. We also have a few snakes, but they are rarely seen. The most common are ringneck snakes, and an occasional Everglades Racer. Haven't seen any venomous snakes.

 

[LSUmiss]

We live a few blocks from a state park/wildlife sanctuary so we got a lot of birds especially Egrets. Those are cool to see in the yard. It’s mostly swamp though so we also get a lot of snakes, possums, raccoons, & hawks. We get the typical squirrels too.

 

[JaxDad]

We live in AZ. At our old house, we lived sort of near desert preserve land, so we had lots of critters that meandered through our yard on occasion. They included:

coyotes
bobcats
road runners
snakes
lots of lizards big & small - the best ones had shiny blue bellies
quail
javelinas - they'd roam in packs...Mom, Dad, and babies. Often at night. They loved prickly pear cactus.

Do the coyotes harass the road runners?

 

[tasha99]

Yesterday, a hawk caught a bird in one of our bushes and carried it to our fence to eat it. We watched him for 20 minutes.

 

[JimMIA]

Yesterday, a hawk caught a bird in one of our bushes and carried it to our fence to eat it. We watched him for 20 minutes.

We had that too. A peregrine falcon demolished a dove right on our pool deck in plain view. A little while later, it was just picking through the pile of dove feathers for scraps!

 

[VandVsmama]

Do the coyotes harass the road runners?

LOL! Nope. But I have been known to shout out "MEEP! MEEP!" when I see a roadrunner.

Roadrunners are awesome. They eat baby rattlesnakes. Once in a movie theater parking lot, we saw one in the process of killing a little lizard. The roadrunner basically repeatedly whacks the lizard or snake against the ground. Over and over again before eating it. It was like a mini-episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

Oh...I also forgot about the Sonoran Desert toads. Every summer they'd show up and camp out on our front door step to catch bugs. They'd hang out in the pool, too, on the top step.

 

[JimMIA]

Do the coyotes harass the road runners?

No coyotes really are wily in real life. They wouldn't waste their time with something they can't catch.

 

[JaxDad]

No coyotes really are wily in real life. They wouldn't waste their time with something they can't catch.

Unless there is a very persistent Acme salesperson around...