Question Of The Day. Saturday 14th Of April.

[raysmyheart]

In my yard, I see songbirds, many woodpeckers, grey squirrels, red squirrels (they are so sweet), voles, many chipmunks, little bunny rabbits, woodchucks with their babies (to see them play in the sun is wonderful). I have seen opossum.

I forgot - many, many wild turkeys, many small snakes and many salamanders. Lots of toads and frogs. Deer.

Some critters that sting and will follow you around the yard to no exhaustion if you should bother them - underground bees and wasps!

I often hear coyotes howling in the distance in town, but have not seen one in my yard.

 

[mani]

I'm in coastal suburbia and there's not a lot apart from the birds, which can be stunning: curlews, eastern rosellas, lovely colourful parrots, wattlebirds and one lovely big ibis that follows me around. Oh and lots of magpies, including a young 'teenage' one that has been kicked out of home and has realised there's left-over cat food to be had at my place.
Also water dragons, blue-tongued lizards, tree snakes and the odd children's python. And millions of ghekos.

When I first moved here we had koalas, but there's not a lot of them left now.. we've knocked down all their natural habitat.

 

[Norachan]

I've only seen a fox go through the back yard once.

I often see foxes in the same spot a couple of miles from here. I don't know why they don't come any closer. Maybe they're too similar to tanuki and don't like to live too close to each other.

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Cute puppy!

Oh hey, maybe a badger is what my friend and I saw. We once saw a wild animal in the bushes right around sunset, it scared us so badly we wouldn't go get our toys from the yard, lol. It was red/blonde and looked like the Mario 3 "tanuki" but of course real Tanuki aren't that color.
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Yep, I bet that was a badger. They look like a smaller, blonder tanuki.

Animals always seem much bigger when you catch a glimpse of them in the dark. The tanuki I saw last night looked huge, but I found the hole he got in through this morning and he couldn't have been that big.

Susy is still furious. She keeps finding places that smell of tanuki and growling at them.

 

[maggiedemi]

My brother lied to me. When we went for walks as kids and we would see a snake, he would tell me You don't have to worry, that's just a grass snake, there are no poisonous snakes in NY, they all live down South. So I believed that my entire life. We had 2 small snakes get into the house somehow, but I figured they were harmless. Now I won't be able to sleep.

 

[betsygee]

My brother lied to me. When we went for walks as kids and we would see a snake, he would tell me You don't have to worry, that's just a grass snake, there are no poisonous snakes in NY, they all live down South. So I believed that my entire life. We had 2 small snakes get into the house somehow, but I figured they were harmless. Now I won't be able to sleep.

One of our cats brought in a Pacific ring neck snake. Beautiful green and orange color but I’d never seen one before and didn’t know if it was poisonous or not.

I got the cats away from it, got the snake back outside, far away from the house, and then googled it. Turns out they’re slightly toxic, just enough to stun the bugs they eat but wouldn’t hurt the cats or us humans. Whew.

 

[Willowy]

There are a lot of snakes who are slightly venomous, not enough to hurt humans. Or they have rear fangs so they can't really bite humans anyway. Western hognose are common pet snakes, and they're technically venomous. But they have rear fangs and their venom only makes humans feel slightly ill.

Most people who are bitten by venomous snakes are trying to kill the snake (so they totally deserve it!), so if you see one, just go the other direction, or if it's in/near your house, call a wildlife removal service. Don't mess with it yourself. Snakes don't want to bite you; they only do it if they think their life is in danger.

 

[maggiedemi]

Oh yeah, I screamed and ran the other way! A family member just picked it up and brought it outside, didn't try to kill it. He said it was a small grass/garden snake, not poisonous. It came up through the radiator into the living room, from the cellar I assume. It makes me think there might be a hole or crack down there somewhere. Yikes...

 

[Candybee]

I live in Virginia in the country so we have a lot of critters here. White tailed deer, skunks, raccoons, possums, rabbits, groundhogs, cardinals, flickers, foxes, squirrels, chickadees, doves, hawks, vultures, bears, snakes, wolf spiders, wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, bumblebees, robbins, whipporwills, wild turkeys, grackles, red wing blackbirds, mockingbirds, owls, and of course lots of ferral cats.