USVI-On-Line

We have had so many creature who visit our yard- some good, some bad, some weird!! We get cranes, blue heron, red tail hawks, and squirrels. We have had about 3 alligators take up residence (ranging from4 feet to 8 feet). Owls and bunnies often.We have had a few armadillo. We have had snakes including coral snakes. We have quite a few turtles and a tortoise. We have had foxes.The weirdest thing though was when we were evacuating for a hurricane, we had a wild boar come through the yard.

here are the photos from last couple of years of vistors to our yard
link gone

guess who was in my yard this AM. Only saw because our cat sit up in my lap and looked out the window


Snagit Capture by SHOEMAK38, on Flickr

Is that a fox?

I have visitors at my office as well from time to time, red tailed hawks. They like to sit in the window and stare at me. Here are a couple of my visitors:

liamsaunt wrote:Is that a fox?

yes it is

I will try to get my turkey pictures from last weekend downloaded.

I love those hawks. Last year we did the Falcony program at The Hershey Hotel and it was incredible. My family is now obsessed with birds of prey.

I'm in Northwest Connecticut where the foothills of the Berkshires start and I see all sort of amazing things in my yard...deer (triplet fawns - one well nourished doe thanks to my hostas, no doubt), fox, bobcats, bears, dog-tormenting squirrels, rabbits, chippies, tomato pecking crows and the most amazing little bright orange salamanders. I moved here from the midwest where salamanders are bigger and black with blue or yellow spots so those tiny little orange guys totally fascinate me!

The bear wasn't this year....it was a couple years ago but it's still fresh in my mind. I had made a huge batch of tamales and had the fat and bones from two pork shoulders in my garbage can in the garage. Hubby went off to church one Sunday and I was in the house enjoying the peace and quiet innocently drinking my coffee and kept hearing noises in the garage. It sounded like the garbage can being wheeled around and bikes being knocked over - my first thought was that the neighbors dog was trying to get those pork bones so I stomped to the garage muttering under my breath and flung open the door. NOTHING....so I went outside walked all the way around my house to see if I could catch the neighbor's dog in the act. Still NOTHING so I put the bikes and garbage can back where they belonged and went back inside to sit down with another cup of coffee. Within a minute the noises in the garage started again. So stomp, stomp, stomp back through the house to fling open the garage door and a black bear was standing up digging in the garbage. I don't know who had the most shocked look on their face....me or the bear!! I swear we both screamed like little girls. My dogs caught a whiff and started going berserk so I slammed the door shut and and tried to think of how I could get the darn thing out of my garage since Hubby was due back from church any minute and wouldn't HE be surprized to back the car into the garage and come face to face with a huge bear! I slammed the door a few more times to scare him and had the presence of mind to run and grab my camera. I peeked and the bear was no longer there so I dared to go outside and saw the bear happily skipping off into the woods swinging that bag of bones back and forth in his mouth. He looked liked he'd just won the lottery!!

Lindy wrote:. I peeked and the bear was no longer there so I dared to go outside and saw the bear happily skipping off into the woods swing that bag of bones back and forth in his mouth. He looked liked he'd just won the lottery!!

Now that's funny

liamsaunt wrote:
I have visitors at my office as well from time to time, red tailed hawks. They like to sit in the window and stare at me. Here are a couple of my visitors:

Looking at the hawks is better than a PC monitor over lunch

We live outside of Philly and with recent construction on a big parcel, we now have foxes just walking down the sidewalks, like it's normal.

The worse thing we have to deal with is squirrels. I can't even count them. Doesn't help that the husband feeds them Cheerios.

Connie wrote: The worse thing we have to deal with is squirrels. I can't even count them. Doesn't help that the husband feeds them Cheerios.

We used to feed our squirrels crackers. We had to stop because they got really aggressive. One morning I heard screaming, ran to the door to find a friend of mine cornered by a squirrel demanding a treat. I wisked him off the porch with a broom. No more feeding the squirrels after that.

I live in Southwest Florida and in our backyard I've seen Muscovy Ducks, regular ducks (whatever those are!), Anhingas, Squirrels, Ibis, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Great Blue Herons, Great White Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Wood Storks, Black Racer Snakes, many different kinds of frogs, including tree frogs, and lots of different kinds of lizards. In our area (but not seen in our backyard) are also Alligators, Ospreys, Bald Eagles, an assortment of Hawks, Cormorants, assorted Turtles (particularly Mud Turtles), Burmese Pythons, Coyotes, Black Bears, Sand Hill Cranes, Pelicans (and other beach birds), Bobcats, and Panthers.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Here's a picture my husband took of a Great Blue Heron that had just caught a snake for lunch! (this was NOT in our backyard, thank goodness!)

No pictures but, our beagle sensed something amiss this morning (5:00 AM) and flew off the bed to begin his rare "Guys, there's something huge and crazy out there and I need to get it NOW!" thing. Sure enough, there was a beautiful fox roaming around our backyard.

Dog going crazy, Pete took him out there (on leash) to confront said fox and it was nuts. The fox went down to the lake and made incredible howling sounds which led our dog to make crazy howling sounds. Me? I was oblivious...it's 5 in the dang morning (otherwise, I'm sure I'd have pictures. Or not, I don't do pictures. Pete does. But, I digress.)

So, that's our wildlife adventure for today.

mother bear and her two cubs walked across my yard tonight around 7:30 and no camera

I have a new sighting to share from last evening. Not from my house, but from the vacation house that I rent on Cape Cod: