Ooh, that’s a bad one.
I have a scar on my knuckle from a pike that latched onto my hand from 40 years ago. TBF, we ate the pike for dinner, so I don’t blame it.
black street hen, with chicks, looking to escape the back porch where she has been teaching them to steal cat food:
always a straggler.
"hey! wait up!:
Zebra swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) came to visit. I think it’s the fourth butterfly I’ve seen this spring (the other 3, too quick for me to take pictures, were tiger swallowtails [Papilio glaucus]). I don’t recall seeing one of these before, but (from what I’ve just read) this suggests we have pawpaws somewhere nearby, but I don’t recall seeing those, either. I’m glad it’s enjoying the milkweed (I haven’t seen any monarchs among them in a year or 2).
We also get black swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes) but I don’t remember any last year, after our rue plant died. I bought another, but no takers, yet (I also planted some fennel). Spicebush swallowtail (Papilio troilus) looks familiar, but I know I’d remember the larvae if I ever saw any.
Our white tailed deer hardly deserve the “wild animals” credit anymore – they have lost all fear of humans and are ubiquitous day and night
Last week I was camping in Kings Canyon and there were several bear encounters at the campground. One local bear just didn’t want to stay away, and seemed pretty nonchalant about yelling, banging, air horns car horns and other noises that people tried to scare it off. Eventually it found a trash bin that someone had failed to latch closed, so its persistence paid off (in the short term.)
Then when I got home from the trip I learned that an even bigger, bolder bear had been spending time in my neighborhood:
No bears or humans hurt in these incidents yet, fingers crossed that it stays that way. But if the bears get relocated that’s rarely successful for the bears’ long-term survival prospects. 
