Do you have any wild animals coming into your yard ?

More and more, we are seeing pictures, and hearing stories, of the wild creatures that are slowly moving into the towns and cities across the United States.
As we expand our homes further and further into the woodlands where the raccoons, opossums, deer, and bear live, the animals have to either move further into the forest, or they learn to integrate their lif into the suburbs of America. Sometimes, it is a combination of these two choices; but more and more often, we are seeing some of these creatures in our back yards.
My little Blue Heeler, Tootsie, has been barking at something out in the yard, and goees racing around the back of the house, when we let her out. The other night, she was barking into the tool shed. My husband thought maybe she had caught a prowler; so he took the big flashlight and went out to see.
To his surprise, there in the shed was an opossum, playing dead (of course), and Tootsie right there barking at the little guy.
We live in a fairly large city, but it is not unusual to see both opossums and racoons here, and one apartment complex reported an alligator in the apartment's lagoon area.
Who else has wild animals in their backyard ??

Here is a video of a bear enjoying a backyard hammock.
http://blog.petflow.com/i-put-up-a-hammo...ign=AZPost

We have a herd of antelope that like to graze through our back yard. There was a bear about a mile away from where we live, walking down the highway and a few people spotted him and got him on camera. I'm not sure if Game and Fish was called or not. So yes, we have wild game in our territory. It's actually pretty neat to wake up in the morning and have your coffee and watch the antelope "playing" in our backyard. They have little babies right now and they are so darn cute!

Francy, that is totally awesome ! ! How wonderful to live in an area where they have antelope. Do you sing "Home, home on the range" to them ?? I have only seem antelope on a trip through Wyoming, and there were some out in the prairie along side of the highway.
We used to live in a house where we had a momma deer and her baby fawns come every year. There was an apple tree, and she would bring the babies along to eat apples. Of course, the apples came in the fall, so by then the fawns were older, and could eat the apples, too.
Sometimes, she would jump over the fence and into the pasture, and the deer and my llamas would socialize together. That was great fun to watch them "talking" and playing together.

I live in the country, not a 'wild' area like Alaska or northern states like Wyoming, etc. But yep, pretty much any small little critter like opossum, raccoon, armadillo, rabbits, road runners, of course snakes. There are also wild turtles that come on pretty frequently. The dogs have a bark for a turtle and behavior for them that looks and sounds like no other, lol.

Of course all the birds, birds of prey such as buzzards, hawks, and owls. I really love watching buzzards in the sky, catching a thermal, etc. And of course, non prey birds. I have seen rare birds of all kinds here too. There are also the 'cow' birds, which is really a kind of egret. We have some water type birds that come and go from people's cow tanks.

We don't have bear or wolves. But we for sure have coyotes. I have also seen a wild cat, only glimpses of. I was afraid to admit it talking to a neighbor once, but he said, yes he and other neighbors had seen one too. My glimpse was only a body like a mountain lion. But evidence has shown kittens with lynx markings, so I know we have those around here too.

Other parts of Texas especially the hill country have deer as regular parts of their yard and have to secure their gardens, somehow. Honestly they are beautiful but that would be a problem. They only come here from a distance.

I am definitely glad that we don't have any cougar around here, and I don't think that any deer even get very close into town here. Mostly we just have things like squirrels, opossums, and raccoons. There are poisonous snakes here in Alabama, but we don't seem to get them here in town. Actually, I have never even seen any kind of a snake around here, venomous or otherwise.
When I lived in Missouri, we had a lot of water moccasins and copperheads out there, and they would come right up into the yard. I hated those snakes ! ! One time I got bit by a copperhead, and it was an awful experience. My leg was all swollen up, and i couldn't even walk on it for the next couple of weeks. After that, I was even more careful to watch for snakes.

Oh yes, the snake 'people'. I call them that because my weenie girl (the dachshund) stands at the end of the porch step, drops her head, her little ears drop down cute, and she stands there and talks to them under the house. I don't know what she says, I have to assume it's "you stay down there", "we are out here now" and things like that. They know the word snake, so I talk about them like I do other things with them. Except for one time, another story, they don't engage them. I tell them don't engage a snake or skunk, and they really do seem to know what I'm talking about. In fact, I KNOW they do, I am hoping on their instincts to help them avoid them. I know, it only takes that one time with the wrong one, but I just won't go to that emotional place and keep myself paranoid.

When one is out, we just avoid it. There is a delicate balance with snakes. It does take a special energy of what you put out, fear, or other negative things don't feel good are going to make it worse. I have learned how to live with the balance of having them around. No, I still don't really like them, but there is more respect and less fear. I do always look for that rattle tail or other signs of what they are but I'm not paranoid. I do have to live.

We go to another part of the yard, or in the house. The other night, one was eating a frog, the frog half way out enough for me to see it was a large frog. I was in another part of the house, but I could tell it was the big guy's snake bark. There also is a type of urgency to it that is different than when they are saying human is here, human is here. I went out and saw that, and fortunately, it was not near enough to the door that I said LEAVE it to him and told him to come in, to come in.

Years ago hubby said he had seen rattlers and copper heads here. But I haven't. WHEW. We have the non poisonous kind have coloring that melts into whatever they are on/near. So that is usually tree bark. We have yellow gold leaves in parts of the yard year round, so they can also be a mixture of that. I always have an eye out for the snake people.

I can always tell when the dogs have encountered a snake. There is a certain bark, a certain body action that is different than a reaction to any other critter.

I would not be surprised if your little doggies are not actually talking to the "snake people", Joy.
Years ago, had a big Gladiator Doberman, Bruno, and we would go for walks every day, weather permitting. One day, there was a little garter snake lying on the road. it looked like it had been injured, but was still alive. I knew if he stayed on the road, he would be run over, so I was thinking about picking him up and putting the snake in the ditch at th side of the road. While I was standing there and thinking about whether I wanted to pick up the snake, Bruno reached down and gently picked up the snake, using only his lips (no teeth), and put it in the ditch at the side of the road.
How did Bruno know what I was going to do ?? My only guess is that he either read my mind, or the snake's mind.

My Daughter lives in a neighborhood in Spokane Valley. The houses are fairly close together, but they have a big fenced back yard, a long driveway, as their house sits back from the main culdesack road.

They also have 9 little dogs. A couple times the dogs have come unglued, they are in the house looking out the front window, A Coyote has been out there 3 times causing all the commotion.

(06-30-2014, 12:54 AM)JudyCap Wrote: My Daughter lives in a neighborhood in Spokane Valley. The houses are fairly close together, but they have a big fenced back yard, a long driveway, as their house sits back from the main culdesack road.

They also have 9 little dogs. A couple times the dogs have come unglued, they are in the house looking out the front window, A Coyote has been out there 3 times causing all the commotion.

Judy, your story reminds me of Tootsie and our Opossum.
It has started coming right up to the back door at night. At first, it was going into the garage, and Bobby thought there was a prowler out there; but it turned out to be jut the possum, and it was even "playing possum" because Tootsie was barking at it.
Now, the possum seems to wait until we have all gone to bed, and then it comes foraging around the back door, looking to see if there are any goodies. I try to leave something out there for the possum, so he usually finds at least a little bite to snack on. While he is out there, Tootsie is just inside the door barking at him !

We have birds, squirrels, rats, and field mice in our huge yard. You are 2 houses over, do they visit you? Rats and mice are okay as pets in a cage, not running around the kitchen! Lol. 3 years ago we had a cotton tail in the yard. Saw it a few times in the night coming home from Pizza Hut after a late shift. Haven't seen it in awhile, though. Every once in awhile we have a tree frog by the back faucet keeping us awake at night.

Treeca, we have a huge amount of squirrels here, but no rats or mice. I am sure that Tootsie would get them if one did come into the yard.
When we lived in the country, we had rats, and mice that would sneak inside at night, and Tootsie would catch the mice and kill them. She is very fast when she is after them, and really likes catching the mice.
I have read that squirrels will also kill mice and rat, and I do not know if that is so, or not; but if it is true, we have plenty of squirrels around to get them, too.
The squirrels are fun to watch, and they love figuring out ways to get to the bird feeder, so we are always having to try and find a place to hang the feeder that the squirrels can't reach it and eat all the birdseed.

I don't recall any fancy wild animals stopping by my house. I have seen tons of squirrels, rabbits, deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, and birds. On different occasions, I have seen a fox and a coyote. I am so thankful I have never seen a bear, poisonous snakes, or an alligator! I would die.

From what I have read about it, there is a huge influx of wild animals that are moving into the urban areas, all over the United States. The article that I was reading said that there are about as many "urban raccoons" living in suburban neighborhoods as there are living out in the wilds, and in the woods. They are also moving more and more into the totally urban areas, where they find a lot of easy food by rummaging through the garbage cans.
We are slowly spreading out our cities in the suburbs, so more and more of the fields and woods where these wild animals have always live; and the animals have adapted into living with humans nearby.
I saw a video of a town in California, and there was a bear wandering through the neighborhood, and it looked like he was just going from house to house and checking the trash barrels for any food that he wanted to eat.