Over the Hedge

[LA80 3]

Being from a big, gray, concrete city, I was amazed by the number and variety of animals in my backyard. This amazement only increased with the arrival of spring. Squirrels are everywhere, as well as funny walking birds with orange tummies. Opossums are digging through the trash, deer jumping in front of a car, coyotes crossing the road, and I few days ago, I found a turtle in a nearby ditch. What is the situation in your area?

[reeses16 8]

I love watching animals. I moved from a suburban area to a city. The only animals I see now are the occasional squirrel. One in particular likes to lay flat on the fence on sunny days....never seen another squirrel do this. And there are raccoons that take a shortcut through my yard in the evenings.

[trinket 30]

Have seen quite a few animals out here-- squirrel, rabbit, raccoons, horses, cows (I seen cows and horses in a farm) and loads of birds. I love the greenery out here.

[estrella 14]

Frogs! I have frogs camping outside, my husband says is normal, I'm from Mexico City so it isn't normal to me ha ha

[Reba 2]

There's only wild animals and birds out in my yard when the dogs are inside sleeping in the house

We have a heard of deer that go thru now and again, lots of birds, a few squirrels (they tend to stay away because of the dogs), the occasional 'possum (not often, because the dogs), sometimes a gaggle of turkeys, and of course the groundhogs that like to get into our vegetable garden and eat everything

[LA80 3]

Those possums are freaky looking creatures. I watched some videos on youtube when they play dead, and it is kinda funny and freaky at the same time. Recently, I saw two of those guys (looked quite huge to me) sneaking towards neighbor's trash can. I did not try to get close to them, frankly I was shocked to see them, they looked like giant rats. Now I wonder if they would play dead or just run away.

And squirrels are so cute and all over the place.

[trillium13 84]

We have lots of cool animals here in Texas. Cool anoles and lizards and treefrogs, and more birds that you can imagine. I moved here from NY about 8 months ago, and I am amazed by the number of cool animals and birds here as compared to there. The number of bugs (huge ones) is quite astounding. We also have venomous snakes here, which are totally unfamiliar to me.

We sit on our porch and watch all the cool birds come and go. Every day we see new ones. We've put up a hummingbird feeder, and we love watching them go back and forth. As the days go by they seem to become more and more addicted to our feeder. We have other birds trying to nest in our hanging baskets, but the number of free roaming cats around makes us have to discourage them.

We were sitting outside one night and heard the most awful screams! Like the kind that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and make you break out in a sweat. We did some research, and discovered that it was a red fox barking. If you've never heard this, do a google search for "fox bark sound" and you will see what I mean.

Cool thread!

Edited May 16, 2009 by trillium13

[john & jean 37]

we live in the "jungle" here in North East Texas. on our property we have just about all the animals, deer, fox and cat squirrel, opossum, bobcat, raccoon, coyote, armadillo, cotton tailed rabbits, and about five generations of a beaver family. all sorts of birds to watch.

Edited May 16, 2009 by john & jean

[2xHollyx2 3]

We have lots of squirrels here. It's like an invasion especially on campus where people feed them.

In our neighborhood we also have wild rabbits jumping through our yards.

We fed him during winter.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Gina-S

[trinket 30]

Sharing some pics we took today

[kaffy 2]

This is our little guy

he's really adorable and likes to dance for us

[MonkeyJuice 3]

Coming from England, there are always sheep & cows in every field. But when I'm in Michigan...no sheep, a few cows...Strange! Lots of horses though!

[LA80 3]

Wow, fantastic photo kaffy

Here are some of my favorites.

Mr. Cardinal

American robin

Chip'n'Dale

Had some troubles with picture posting, but it seems that the attachment thingy works.

Edited May 17, 2009 by LA80

[MrsCat 6]

Nice photos guys!

[Kathryn41 3,205]

We have lots of wildlife in our back yard as well. Birds of many shapes and sizes (btw, I wonder if that orange bellied bird mentioned earlier is a Towhee?) including blue birds and a variety of wood peckers. I have also had a sharpshinned hawk and a red tailed hawk stake out the bird feeders in the back yard too. I have a list of bird species I have seen here and currently have 58 different species that have visited our back yard. I've also participated in the backyard bird count each February since the year after I arrived. There are heron, storks, geese and ducks in the area as well as our community has two nice sized lakes and a number of pools. We also have a number of hummingbirds visit the yard as well and come right up to the back window and peer in.

We used to have all sorts of rabbits until they constructed houses in the field behind us - haven't seen very many lately. We have opossums - those are regular night time visitors - and I think we might have a fox nearby. There are bobcat in and around the vicinity but I think we are too built up for them to venture close. We have a colony of feral cats living nearby that I actually feed in the woods.

We have salamanders, anoles and skinks all of which I think are so cute. They scurry across the patio, across the window screens (where they drive our cats wild) and up and down plants. Insect wise, we have more varieties of ants than I ever knew existed including fire ants - and I am on a personal vendetta against them whenever I find a mound in the yard. It is hard to keep on top of them though as the neighbours on all sides don't bother to eradicate them so any rainstorm brings new fire ants into the yard. There are red wasps, praying mantis and cicada killers - all of which are new to me. I have also seen black widow spiders in the back yard along with a lot of other unidentified spiders - yuck - that is my only remaining phobia. I hate spiders - but at least I don't end up frozen motionless and unable to move and just stand there shaking like I used to do as a child. Now, I can kill them when they come in the house.

We have hundreds of beautiful butterflies! Lots of different swallowtails including the State butterfly the Tiger Swallowtail - and Spice Bush Swallowtails visit the yard along with many many others of a wide variety of shapes and colours. We have several butterfly bushes in the back yard and they do indeed attract butterflies. There is one butterfly that moves its wings so fast that it actually looks like a hummingbird but isn't. We also do have a lot of bees around so they help to fertilize all the plants in the area.

While Georgia has lots of snakes including several poisonous species, fortunately, I haven't seen any in our yard. What has been annoying lately are two dogs that are let run loose who come and rummage through the patio during the night - a little spaniel was there 4 times at least overnight, disturbing the two outside cats who also 'live' in our back yard.

Oh and we have squirrels - lots of squirrels. I have only ever seen one chipmunk here - and a few years ago before the feral cats moved in we had two Norway rats in the back yard trying to eat the bird seed.

Edited May 17, 2009 by Kathryn41