No, that’s not me writing, tapping away on my keyboard. That’s the noise I hear while I’m writing. Now that our trees have grown we have a lot of thrushes and blackbirds visiting our garden. At this time of the year they hunt out snails, cart them to the nearest concrete path and start thumping them to break the shells so they can dine.
I was going to take photos of all the empty shells, but Mr. Munro used the blower today and blew them away. The bird’s favorite killing ground seems to be under the clothes line. Every time I go out there during summer, I stand on the empty shells. It’s most annoying because I never remember to grab my shoes and end up standing on the sharp, snail shells.
Do you have any interesting wildlife at your place?
ROTFL at that question.
Less than 1/4 mile is a lion preserve. My neighbor raises alpacas and I worry about feral hogs at night.
I live in the middle of nowhere, but I’m hardly alone out here.
We have large fruit bats that live in the trees in front of our building – fortunately they seem to prefer it outside!
I’ve also seen what I believe to be be a couple of baby weasels running across the streets in my neighborhood in the last week. Body too long and curved and tail too short and thick to be a rat, LOL. Saw a full grown weasel one evening a while back and all the stray cats steered clear. Not something you expect to see in a crowded suburb of Cairo!
I enjoyed that:)
We have all kinds of birds, squirrels, the occasional raccoon, possum, and groundhog and once in a great while deer.
Well I live in the middle of a city so I don’t see anything other than an occasional squirell.
Maria – LOL I figured someone was bound to have lots of animals. I LOVE alpacas and would love to have some of my own one day. I’m working on winning lotto because that’s about the only way it will happen. Hmmm, thought. I could always go and work on an alpaca farm…
My father has a few feral pigs that go and join his for dinner. These days he has deer and goats as well, which is unusual for New Zealand. They weren’t there when we were kids. Probably a good thing. No one wants to come face-to-face with a wild pig, and we used to roam the farm as children.
Jenyfer – fruitbats are definitely better outside! We have a native bat here in NZ, but I’ve never seen one. Weasels are a big problem here because many of our native birds are flightless and they decimate the nests and birds. I don’t think people are even allowed to buy them–not 100% sure on that. It’s not something I’d expect to see in the middle of Cairo. Do you think it might be someone’s pet that has escaped?
Sandra – we have quite a few birds including ducks and there are always seabirds flying over because we live near an estuary. When we first arrived there were hardly any birds because it was a new subdivision with no trees. We’re quite pleased with the number of birds we have, and it’s nice to see the odd native bird as well.
Linda – it’s often surprising how much wildlife is in the middle of a city. It’s probably because most cities keep green areas these days.
Well we do have some small wild creatures that seem to snuggle up in the shed during the winter months. This year it’s an old brown rat that we have been feeding and we know he’s in there because we see droppings and he keeps moving and eating the food we leave in there for him.
A couple of years ago we had a small family, (4-6) wild mice in that shed. My husband came home one day and got me to come take a look at what he found. Inside a small box of work gloves was 4 baby mice just barely crawling around. So we put some food in the shed for the mother and set out a small lid with some milk in it. EWvery day we would go back and give them more until one day they just weren’t there anymore. I guess it was time for them to move on.
Little creatures keep moving into the shed because there’s a 3″ gap under the door..lol But I don’t mind as long as they don’t bring back their whole family, extended family and friends too. lol
We live near a creek and have birds, squirrels, opossoms, racoons and even a badger last year. A pair of red shouldered hawks nested in a big tree beside our house last spring and I hope they come back. He caught snakes and carried them to her to eat. I think they cleaned out the snake population around here which is fine with me.
Mary – I’d be okay with that as long as they don’t decide to move inside with me. When we lived at our last house they used to come inside during the winter and hide behind the fridge where it was warm.
Ruby, it must have been fun watching the hawks. I’d be quite happy about the snakes too. I’m so glad we don’t have any in New Zealand.
Speaking of wildlife, I was sitting tapping away on my laptop tonight with all the doors open because it’s hot. I caught a flash of brown and looked up to see a duck about to step inside. I jumped up and closed the door and the duck and I eyed each other through the glass for a while.
We have several large ponds near us, and it’s quite usual to see ducks wandering the street or sunning themselves on the grass verges, but we don’t usually see them in our section. This is the second duck in a week, and I’m thinking it’s the same one wanting food. Hubby fed the first one and took photos.
I live in the middle of a large city but I have a possum that comes and eats the cat food that I put out for the stray cats. I guess it is a stray too.