Animals In Your Back Yard

[VaBeachGuy 12]

I'm curious, what kind of animals call your back yard home?

 

The only animals that actually "live" in my back yard are wild rabbits. I've seen 2 or 3 running around from time to time. I've also seen racoons, opossum and deer around the neighborhood but not in my yard.

 

During deer season we get a lot of hunters and you hear a lot of gun shots out in the woods.

 

The strangest experience I had was when I was in the Army and living in Texas. I was going on leave and when you go on leave you have to go sign out at the battalion headquarters, the earliest you can sigh out is Midnight of the date you start your leave. Since I didn't have a car at the time I decided to walk to the headquarters building at midnight to sign out. That was a 3 to 5 mile walk one way, so it wasn't a short distance . While I was walking I looked across the street from me and noticed that an armadillo was walking in the same direction. Armadillo's are pretty common in Texas but it was just a strange thing to be walking along and see.

[Jeanway 0]

OH BOY :blink: :) Badgers, sea gulls, chipmunks, skunks, rabbits, raccoons, voles, snakes, butterflys, all kinds of birds, drunks, runaway kids, stray dogs and cats, had a monkey once. It's really nice here :blink:

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

bugs, spiders, worms, etc...

Nothing good...

:blink:

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I live in an apartment so no backyard but I have a great number of lizards on my patio and some frogs....there's the neighbors cat... the snake I almost stepped on across the street, a variety of birds. The dogs have to be on leashes. Squirrels everywhere.

 

Then there are the bees, spiders, mosquitoes, cicadas, crickets,

 

Do the gators in the pond in front of my office building count?

 

On the drive to work I can see armadillos - dead more often than alive, cows, horses, cranes, egrets, buzzards and I've smelled dead skunks.

[nik 0]

Deer, opposum, raccoon, squirrels, Canade geese, ducks, lot's of wetland life.

 

Living in Texas was the best, though! Horned lizards, racers, an occassional rattler, an armadillo every now and then..... like going to the zoo.

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

Deer, opposum, raccoon, squirrels, Canade geese, ducks, lot's of wetland life.

 

Living in Texas was the best, though!  Horned lizards, racers, an occassional rattler, an armadillo every now and then..... like going to the zoo.

that only happens when you live outside of te city

[dark_moon_drago 0]

Lets see here there deer, squarrles, birds, the ocassional duck or goose some times geese, the *very* rare Cyotey, the neighbors cat, turkey and does my porch count because last night there was a black bear haveing a snack on my porch. *hides in room holding tennis racket and hopeing it doesnt decide to come inside*

[nik 0]

Deer, opposum, raccoon, squirrels, Canade geese, ducks, lot's of wetland life.

 

Living in Texas was the best, though!  Horned lizards, racers, an occassional rattler, an armadillo every now and then..... like going to the zoo.

that only happens when you live outside of te city

Yep.... That's right, I forgot you were Texan. Lived there as a kid.... want to go back.

[edmcgon 0]

On the hill next to my yard, there are two groundhogs. They eat the kudzu, so I leave them alone.

 

There are also two wild tabby cats. About 5 years ago, I used to have mouse problems every winter. When the cats moved into my yard, that stopped. I leave them alone too, although I will on rare occasions (during colder times of year) leave a little food for them. I don't want them to rely on me, but I don't want them to starve either. They are good mousers.

 

I saw a long black snake on my hillside a few years ago (I don't know what kind). I turned the sprinkler on him and I have not seen him since.

 

I saw a terrapin turtle (about 6 inches long) in my yard last fall. I moved him down to the end of the yard (there are a lot more insects down there). I think he may have crawled into the woods behind my house because I have not seen him since.

 

There are two adult rabbits which constantly run around my yard (except in the winter). They are cute and don't eat much, plus the kids like them.

 

I did see one of the cats catch a baby rabbit last summer. It is quite impressive to watch a cat, even a little one, stalk prey. The cat carried the immobilized (may have been dead) rabbit into the woods behind my house. The next thing I see is the other cat going into the same part of the woods where the first cat went (rabbit dinner for everyone?).

 

I have also seen a few lizards.

 

The worst thing I have seen was black widows. I have killed 6 of them since we moved into the house almost 7 years ago (although it has been a few years since I killed the last one). There was one in the basement, one in the main hallway, one in the garage, one outside the garage, one under the deck, and one on a foot-tall pine tree that I transplanted in the yard.

 

That last one was truly shocking because I spent at least 15 minutes carefully digging up the roots on that pine VERY close to it. She could have easily bitten me at any time. I did not notice her until I was carrying the tree into my back yard. When I saw her, I shook her off the tree and sent her to God with my foot. Sorry, but the black widow is one of God's creations I could easily do without. :spidy:

[Ace 0]

Seen in back yard:

My outdoor pets

Raccoons

Geese

Rabbits (most common)

Opossum

Groundhog (he lives under our storage building )

tons of birds

tons of insects

Snakes

Moles

Strays

Mice

 

Assume they've been there or just over the fence:

Coyotes

Deer

 

Seen in the neighborhood:

Cows

Horses

Cranes

Turtle

Squirrels

Chipmunks

 

Smelt:

Skunks

Edited May 2, 2004 by Ace

[edmcgon 0]

One other thing: The neighbors behind our house own some horses.

[VaBeachGuy 12]

One animal I don't see much of around here is squirrels, they were all over my yard in Maryland but not here. Maybe it has something to do with sea level?

 

As for frogs, one day about 10 years ago I was taking the cover off the pool to open it for the summer and saw an albino frog (all white). That was the first time I'd ever seen that, a few minutes before I saw that I killed a black widow spider. Got both on video. My neighbor said he killed a rattle snake in his back yard across the street but I haven't seen any snakes in the 13 or 14 years that I've been here.

 

There's always field mice, and various bugs and birds though. But I believe the only animals that actually live in the yard are the rabbits.

[Captain Jean-Luc Picard 1]

No animals live in my back yard. I have 2 dogs and 2 kittens in my front yard, 1 dog in my side yard, and 1 dog and 2 cats in the house.

[Mike 5]

Squirrels, Rabbits and the occasional Skunk.. Oh, and there are always cats roaming thru my yard..There are a lot of cats and dogs in my neighborhood but there is a lease law for the dogs..

[Vulcan IDIC 0]

Currently there are no animals living in our backyard. We have in the passed though had apossums, skunks (a family with little ones), and wild cats.

[Kyra_Ashleigh 0]

We've had bats living in the eaves of our house... now *that* is a ton of fun!

 

I've seen raccoons, squirrels. a duck once and a turtle once.

 

The turtle must have been someones pet... I don't think they're indigenous.

 

Also, for some reason, our house attracts lost or abandoned animals like you wouldn't believe. We've got another stray cat hanging around who I'm trying to befriend.

 

In the neighborhood, we have coyotes, skunks, possums and who knows what else.

[Delta 0]

We have quite a few hedgehogs that can be seen at night.

 

In the summer bats over fly the garden hunting for insects.

 

Also in the summer a pair of frogs can usually be found in our flower bed. I have no idea where they come from we don't have a pond and I don't think any of our neighbours do, yet the frogs are usually there hiding under the leaves of the plants.

 

There are a pair of robins nesting in a tree in our garden at the moment they take moss out of our grass to line their nest which is nice of them.

[hangon 3]

Yeah i got a hedgehog living in my back garden,my little sister puts milk outside for it on a night time and sits and waits for it to come

The only other animal that lives in the back yard is ME..lol

[Theunicornhunter 2]

We've had bats living in the eaves of our house... now *that* is a ton of fun! 

I'd be a little scared to go outside...

 

My sister in law told me they put a "bat house" on their property to attract bats- because the bats will eat the mosquitoes. I'd never heard of such a thing.

[Ace 0]

(Forgot: frogs, toads, bats...)

[A l t e r E g o 9]

Skunks, possums and stray cats for the most part, seagulls, doves, ravens, owls & a few songbirds.

[Jim Phaserman 0]

stray cats, and occasionally deer.

[ILIKESEVEN 0]

cats are like the black plague (I HATE CATS)

But i found a solution for that problem.

i buried a 2,5 meter long plastic tube in my garden, it,s 25 cm wide and put some catfood a the bottom, at night the cats fall in it and next morning i fill it up with dirt, and one cat less <_<

[Jim Phaserman 0]

PETA would LOVE you! (Just kidding)

[Q stole my bike 0]

My cats, various birds and small rodents that my cats hunt down, the neighbor's fox, and an albino squirrel

[RikerChick 5]

Mostly just lots and lots of lizards and a lot of birds. And my cats who enjoy chasing the lizards and birds.

[mj 7]

My backyard is actually association property, and I mainly see robins, cardinals, and sparrows. I have seen salamanders in our parking lot. I was told to look out for deer, but I have only seen one on the drive home, not near the property. On the walking trails in our develpment I have seen other creatures. There is a swan, and several mallards living on a lake at the end of one of the walking trails. A little more than just the back yard, but things I see regularly.

[Q stole my bike 0]

The foxes in my neighborhood are in their mating season or something, last night at like 5am they were doing their weird mating call (I think that's what it was) and it sound like a really high pitched scream, so it woke me up and at first I thought it was a person screaming, and I got so scared. They they screamed again and I realized it was just the damn fox.

[Nemesis 0]

Foxes, Coyotes, deer, had a family of beavers living in the stream thats 10 feet from my yard well now it's a swamp thanks to the beavers. What else partridges, a woodpecker lived in the tree in my yard but that blew over in the hurricane, stray cats of course, see a lot of blue jays, and such and such. Well when we move to our new place which is in the boonies I'm sure I'll see more lol.

[Jim Phaserman 0]

what? no monkeys?