At my place...

[Bluenose]

Hi siblings!

This is what was on the other side of my back fence last night.  Aussies often joke that Americans think we have kangaroos running down the middle of the street all the time.  Well, I often have them over my fence, I suppose that's close enough!  Oh, and before you ask, yes, that is a female with a joey in the pouch.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Roos! 

[Darlica]

Having the wildlife on your backyard is fantastic isn't it.
Growing up somewhat on the countryside, that's one of the things I miss the most living in the city.
No kangaroos on my backyard though (no polar bears either BTW), mostly red deers, hares and mooses. 


Thank you for sharing the pics Blue nose.

[pieces o nine]

An old friend was married in Montana and one of the high points for them was the moose (plural) that came to the wedding.   

I see that kangaroos crash weddings on Oz. 

[Bluenose]

Yeah, having wildlife in or next to your backyard is really great.  We get a lot of native birds in our yard - we planted native plants specifically to attract them - and that is a constant joy.

These roos (eastern grey kangaroos) live on the land surrounding the quarry which is on the other side of our back fence.  There is a mob of about 30 according to some info I have read, but I've never seen more than about 7 or 8 at a time.  In the last few months we've been seeing a lot more of them, once or twice a week, but then since we work, they may well be around a lot more than that.  When we moved in here, we deliberately did not plant a lot of tall plants along the fence or otherwise blocked out the view, since this end of the quarry is well vegetated and we "borrow" the vista to make our garden look bigger.  This works very well and although as you can see in the photos we have a chain wire fence, we find that the fence effectively disappears from view and the effect works very well - plus we get to see kangas from time to time.  Most, if not all of our neighbours did the obvious thing and have planted against the boundary, probably for privacy reasons, but the area which looks a lot like a park is not open to the public so the only people we ever see there are workmen who are only there occasionally and only during working hours, so in the evening or on the weekend, which is when we usually use the garden, there's no one there.  Aren't we just the smarty pantses?   

I find myself feeling very fortunate that we have this at our home.  On the other hand I find the idea of having deer and moose very exotic and exciting.   

Obviously this does not bear up to too close an inspection, after all, it is hardly surprising that other places have other animals around.  Sill, what seems mundane to one person can be very extraordinary to someone else, and I always try to remember just how lucky I am to live where I do.  I say this not because I think Australia is better than anywhere else, only that I firmly believe you should learn to appreciate those things about your own place that are worthy of consideration.  Mrs Blue and I both take delight in the critters we find in our garden which include an enormous number of different insects and spiders, not the scary ones for the most part, but lots of very beautiful ones and exquisite little ones.  We get some simply stunning caterpillars and beetles and then there are lots of common garden skinks (lizards) which despite their "commonness" are the most extraordinarily beautiful little animals with bronze and iridescent colouring, if you only take the time to look closely.  We have frogs that call out from our pond and stunningly gorgeous dragonflies and damselflies.  One advantage we have learned from all this close observation of our own tiny little bit of the country is that it has taught us how to look at wherever we are.  We find that when we go places we see all sorts of things that are not immediately obvious to the eye, but are often there in plain view if only you know how to look.  It is a great way to be, wherever you are, and sometimes you can find things for free that are far more beautiful and more interesting than many of the things that cost you a lot of spondoulah to look at.  Try it, you won;t be disappointed!

[Sibling DavidH]

We have lots of deer in Herefordshire, but you won't see any unless you get up early and go very quietly to the right place.  You can walk in a wood where every inch of ground has a deer print, but you won't see any.

[Griffin NoName]

We have urban foxes. Not the nice plump red fur ones found in the countryside, but almost grey scraggy utterly awfully thin  ones which have lost their fear of humans. Many people like them but I cannot stand them. Plus they screech a lot at night (during mating) which gets tedious.

[Opsa]

I planted a hedgerow all around our property to attract wildlife.

We get lots of birds: cardinals, blue jays, goldfinches, hose finches, sparrows, chickadees, titmice, robins, starlings, grackles, nuthatches, juncos, crows, hummingbirds, swallows, red-winged blackbirds, occasionally a hawk or falcon, and others like rose-breasted grossbeaks and orioles. I have a birdbath and feeder for them, too.

For animals we get racoons, red foxes, grey squirrels, white tailed deer, little brown bats, lots of tree frogs and toads, garter snakes, black rat snakes, etc. I wish we got lizards. I love lizards. There are probably little skinks out there, but I haven't seen any.

Love the bugs, too. We get bumblebees, honeybees, carpenter bees, ants of several kinds, moths and butterflies of several kinds and their caterpillar forms (I especially like sphinx moths, luna moths, and tiger swallowtails) spiders, wasps (not so fond of them), dragonflies  and probably lots of others. Don't forget the fleas and gnats!

I enjoy looking at the creatures, admiring them, watching them live their lives. Most of them are beautiful. I guess they all are, in their own way.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

With all those birds?  I betcha you don't have an outside cat... right?



Sounds lovely.

[Sibling DavidH]

We put out a lot of food for the birds, too, but we don't see that many species.  As Bob says, that'll be next doors' cats.

We have a resident squirrel whose mission in life is to get at the bird food.

[Opsa]

I do have an indoor/outdoor cat. She is roly poly but she does manage to catch various things and sometimes brings them inside. That's how I saw my first baby bluejay. He was the prettiest and most furious little thing, ever. I finally got him onto a broom and carried him outside again.

She's also brought in rabbits and chipmunks (not listed above) and snakes. All were escorted back outside if not deceased. I do not scold her, since I know it's just her instincts at work.

It must be fun to see wild kangaroos. Those photos are charming.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I do enjoy watching the YouTube of squirrels out-thinking the various anti-squirrel things.

One of the funniest was a pair of cooperative squirrels:  one held the tipping-cone steady, while the other climbed up and threw out all the seeds-- whereupon both had a lovely dinner of birdseed.   It was a truly amazing display of cooperation. 

[pieces o nine]

One Friday night after work in Wiscaaaahnsin I packed up the car and headed out to see friends in another county for the weekend. About 2 miles out, I realized I'd forgotten something and returned home. As my headlights strafed the garage, I saw a gang of racoons, paws in the air, guilty as sin, man,  caught in flagrante delicto  by the garbage. I'd never seen them before -- didn't even know they were around. This remains one of my favorite urban wildlife sightings.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I've seen racoons at the garbage bin, we have some resident squirrels and bluejays, plus the frequent visits of ducks, ibises, mockingbirds, clans of parrots flying by, and lately, to the great discomfort of my 'tiels, a hawk that seems to crave them in the worse possible way, but -fortunately- can't get them through the screen. Not that far (the canal 300 mts from here) I've seen a medium size alligator (just 2 meters long), plus plenty of white, and great blue herons.

Not that close from home, in the Everglades National Park we saw this past weekend among other birds, a flock of flamingos flying by, which is possibly one of the most wonderful sightings I had since I saw toucans, monkeys, hawks, and wild turkeys in the Yucatan peninsula, all of them free in their habitat. It may sound ironic, but watching that flock flying high made me incredibly happy as opposed to all the other captive flamingos I've seen up close in parks here in FL.

[Pachyderm]

I feel a bit guilty. You all seem to be interested in and aware of the various forms of wildlife around you, and enjoy having the beasties around.

I actually get paid to go and look for stuff like that, and to give people advice on what to do with the various forms of wildlife they may encounter.

But when not working, I loaf around, and try to avoid going outside as much as possible, to enjoy being indoors, warm and dry.