Wildlife in Your Life

@Region Philbis,

Ah.

It's a cool picture.

1 Reply

@Joeblow,

we've had maybe 9 or 10 in the house over the years.

can't say that i'm a fan...

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@Region Philbis,

What?!

Not a one off?

(eek)

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@Region Philbis,

A bat on the ground during the day? Have you gotten checked for rabies?

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

no.

it was in the kitchen, hanging from the spice rack.

it was in pretty bad shape, so i goaded it out onto the deck, then took the pic.

eventually it summoned the strength to fly away...

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On campus yesterday - a Lumholtz tree kangaroo having a squiz at the Cairns institute before heading back to the trees

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/32/cb/c8/32cbc8f7aebc468f621f2bdeb7a02855.jpg

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Within 10 minutes of arriving at the cottage yesterday, sitting alone on the deck, I watched a blue heron come in for a landing, then stroll half our lake front before walking out to the end of the dock, where it stayed for about an hour.

Then, moments ago, I watched seven swans swim by. Swans are not common on this lake. We saw a pair of them a few years ago, but seven is quite the sight.

It is so easy to decompress here. God I love it Smile

1 Reply

@Joeblow,

I've had a blue heron patrolling my lower field for the past week or so. Incongruous as hell to watch him stalking prey (crickets or possible voles) in the tall grass!

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Going for my morning trail walk (it is good for my physical and mental health I was told) around a pond, there is lots of woodland creatures - chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, birds, turkeys, deer - that I come across frequently. Well the fall tends to bring out even more scurrying around looking for food storage.

I happen upon one squirrel and he sees me and runs up a tree that is overhanging the trail. Just as I walk under it - there is some noises like branches following or other debris from the tree and I think damn squirrel is he throwing things at me and just as I am under it - wham! At my feet the dumb thing had fallen out of the tree and he hit hard.

Fortunately he must not have been hurt too badly as he quickly got to his feet and ran back up the tree. Never seen that before.

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Quote:

The new golden age of wildlife in New England

In the broadest sense, what we see in our backwoods and backyards today is a result of
something called the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, which eliminated
commercial hunting and put states in charge of implementing policies to restore
populations to optimum levels, and then keep them there.

For so-called game animals, this success has been remarkable. In 1900, when commercial
hunting was essentially outlawed nationally, there were only 500,000 white-tailed deer
left in the United States. Today there are 30 million. Massachusetts has an estimated
93,000, despite its small size and the country’s third-highest population density.
That’s far more than we’ve ever had, specialists say, even before European colonization.

Turkeys, which disappeared from the state sometime around the Civil War thanks to a loss
of habitat and overhunting, were re-introduced to Massachusetts in the 1970s, beginning
with 37 birds released in the Berkshires. Today, there are 35,000 of them, so ubiquitous,
even in urban areas, that they dropped off many people’s point-and-shout list, something
that has already happened with hawks and rabbits.

(bostonglobe)

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Every morning between 6 AM and 7, the wife and I sit out on the patio with our morning cuppa, as we watch anything up to 15 wallabies, feeding, fighting and playing on our front lawn. We live on a 20 acre allotment some 50 miles out of town.

Goannas and dingo's were our biggest problems, as we were losing livestock because of them. but we're smarter than them, and rather than kill them, we simply created better protection for our stock.

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@Region Philbis,

last year, I wrote:

we've had maybe 9 or 10 in the house over the years.

#11 was late last night, just as we were about to turn off the bedroom lights and zzz.

it came fluttering in, jes screamed, i screamed!

i got up, shut the bedroom door and proceeded to turn on every light in the house, adrenalin pumping.

eventually found critter downstairs, opened the front door, and out it went.

took a while for both of us to calm down enough to go to sleep...

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

Yeah, that soft dry flapping sound – unmistakable!

1 Reply

Where I live wildlife has diminished with increasing rapidity. Around my property all I am aware of that's left are birds and squirrels. I leave fresh water out for them and toss a daily handful of raw peanuts for them. I don't try to befriend any of them because wild animals should in general shun the untrustworthy humans. With exceptions, of course.

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@hightor,

Quote:

that soft dry flapping sound – unmistakable!

we had the box fan on medium, so we didn't hear it.

this episode was eerily similar to a pervious bat encounter, same time of year...

1 Reply

@Region Philbis,

It'll be a long time before I forget the sight of that critter just flying (fast!) in the upstairs hall.

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I watched a hawk take out a mourning dove in my back yard yesterday. It had him on the ground, when the dove managed to break free and fly about 15 feet before the hawk got him again. Not wanting to witness the ensuing carnage, mrjoe walked towards them, at which point the hawk took wing with the poor thing in it's talons. Ain't nature terrible and wonderful at the same time?

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