The wild animals that live among us

Lovely Birds.

5 Likes

Beautiful plumage.

6 Likes

I didnā€™t know where else to post this, really!

Lots of flashing ads, etc.

7 Likes

No word on whether the chickens were angry about McDonaldā€™s plans to roll out new chicken sandwiches.

:rofl:

6 Likes

The plumage donā€™t enter into it. Itā€™s stone dead.

5 Likes

My first thought, but I let someone else have a turn, lol.

4 Likes

Heā€™s just resting after a long squawk.

4 Likes

So now we have 12 (twelve!) deer in the back yard, which isnā€™t all that big.

My wife counted the ears and divided by two.

9 Likes

I wonder why theyā€™re called that, they look more like little bears

7 Likes

No photo, but a couple of skunks were either fighting or fucking (both?) in the yard last night. I can still smell skunkā€¦ in the house. The sounds were disturbing, like screaming. All the cats are accounted for and stink free, so it was just the wildlife, gettinā€™ wild.

Edit, typo.

10 Likes

What in the world do you have there in your grass to create such a party??!!

8 Likes

I never seem to get good photos, but the one nice thing about living in rural Indiana is the wildlife. I went to the kitchen the other day and found a deer AT THE WINDOW looking in. Hey, dude!

Bear have gotten close, but never this far south. But we do have deer, coyotes, foxes, possoms, muskrats, beavers, raccoons, rabbits, plus all the usual small things like squirrels, chipmunks, and mice. And snakes, frogs, etc. And birds! more than I can possibly identify, but of the migratory waterfowl: sandhill cranes, great blue herons, swans, ducks, loons, grebes, etc.

And in a completely different category, I put the Canada geese. Noisy, poop EVERYWHERE, barely get out of your way when youā€™re walking because they are not afraid of humans. Ugh. Iā€™m not going to do anything to harm them, but if I discovered a way to convince them our bit of land isnā€™t worth spending time on, I would happily pay any amount for the knowledge.

8 Likes

Spiders? Violets? I dunno, but those are two things I have a lot of.

6 Likes

Despite the name ā€œfisherā€, the animal is not known to eat fish [and itā€™s not a cat]. The name is instead related to the word ā€œfitchā€, meaning a European polecat ( Mustela putorius ) or pelt thereof, due to the resemblance to that animal. The name comes from colonial Dutch equivalent fisse or visse . In the French language, the pelt of a polecat is also called fiche or fichet . ā€“ Fisher (animal) - Wikipedia

3 Likes

Yesterday morning, I was feeding the cats, and saw a snake. In the house, was a snake. I estimated it was about 3 feet long, about as big around as my thumb, and gray/brown.

Ernie was headed toward it, and not knowing whether it was venomous or not, I put him in the bathroom. I put the other cats in a different room and went back for the snake. The snake was gone. My SO didnā€™t see it, and asked if it was real.

I looked around several times, checking under stuff, and hoping that it went out the way it came in.

Around 1 am, my dude calls to me, waking me up. Ernie found the snake. We still donā€™t know if it is possibly dangerous, so all the cats got locked up again.

Iā€™m sure it would have been hilarious to watch us trap the snake in a plastic tote, him and the blanket he was hiding under. We walked him away from the house, not too close to the road, and he slithered off into a big field next door.

After watching it slither away, I think it was more like 4 feet long and about 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter.

Below are two screenshots from the video I took, and a photo that shows the snake as well as it could, given that it was nighttime and all illumination was by flashlight.

After looking online, I think that it was a black rat snake, and he gets to slither another day. Hopefully he is well and truly afraid of people, cats and buildings at this point, and will stay out of our dang house!

Eventful overnight, Iā€™m tired today!

Screen Shot 2021-03-30 at 11.43.17 AM

11 Likes

I donā€™t mind snakes but in the house? Gad. You seem so calm about it!

10 Likes

I like snakes, though I donā€™t know a lot about them, so I am careful any time I donā€™t know enough to be confident in them being harmless to me.

My SO wanted to kill it, because heā€™s anti-snake, but I gently steered the situation away from that. And, as we walked out past the shovels, I just didnā€™t pick one up, so snek would definitely have a chance to get away.

13 Likes

Rat snakes are perfectly safe for humans and cats. Thanks for letting him get back to nature, where he belongs!

11 Likes

Thank you for keeping a natural vermin-killer alive. <3

6 Likes

American White Pelicans ā€¦ Weā€™ve been at this campsite a week and havenā€™t seen these guys until today. And now there must be a hundred on the little lake.

10 Likes