Your Local Wildlife

hobbsyoyo

hobbsyoyo

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What wildlife can be found in your neck of the woods? Anything dangerous that you have to watch out for? Anything endangered or making a come back?


A little while ago we went out on a short night hike to see the comet and on the way back I became keenly aware that I live in mountain lion country and became afraid of the dark for the first time in my life!

We also have a large male coyote that likes to use the stream bed alongside our bike trail as his personal highway (and I'm sure there are many more coyotes unseen), as well as a large healthy rattlesnake that regularly crosses the same bike trail. In the same spot as the rattlesnake is a beautiful road runner (big bird from the cartoons) which I imagine might be on the hunt for that rattlesnake.

The most common animals I see in my area though are wild rabbits but apparently a hemorrhagic disease I call bunny ebola has reached my area and is decimating their numbers. Apparently it makes the poor bunnies sort of melt from the inside out. :(
 
Nothing very interesting in my area. Lots of rabbits, and ducks on the waterways. I see red-tailed hawks a lot, and there are flocks of Canada geese that walk brazenly across the sidewalks and road where I work, leaving little green bundles everywhere. They'll stop traffic once in a while, just waddling along. Sometimes wild turkeys, too, and I've seen a swan on the pond once or twice.

Supposedly there is or was a peregrine falcon living on one of the skyscrapers downtown, but I never saw it. They like to live in high canyons, and they like pigeons. Fastest animal in the world, btw - 240 mph/385 kph. Maybe it's no wonder I've never seen it. If you ever see a pigeon just vanish in a puff of feathers, you'll know what happened.

The park across the street has a sign up advising residents not to lose sight of their dogs, because a coyote was spotted there. Again, I haven't seen it myself.

Speaking of pigeons, the other day I was getting off the subway and a pigeon walked off the next car. It stood on the platform for a second, blinking and looking around, like any other tourist trying to figure out which exit to use.

hobbsyoyo said:
The most common animals I see in my area though are wild rabbits but apparently a hemorrhagic disease I call bunny ebola has reached my area and is decimating their numbers. Apparently it makes the poor bunnies sort of melt from the inside out. :(
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Ew.

When I was a kid, I used to see raccoons all the time, and then one Summer they basically disappeared and I hardly ever see them anymore, even all these years later. It turned out rabies had gone through the population, like 28 Days Later for raccoons.
 
Rabbits major pest here due to lack of predators.

Nothing dangerous. Lots of birds, unique birds to NZ and things like albatross and penguins.

Lots of seals down the coast along with the occasional sea lion.

Sharks but they're not really dangerous dogs kill more people here.

My favorites probably the Keas. Highly intelligent alpine parrots beautiful bird as well. Very cheeky and curious.

Kea
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https://www.google.com/search?q=kea...d=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=5g_Z1Q3AvTyOJM
 
We spotted a large hawk the other day but I haven't the foggiest idea what kind. It scared off a couple of crows that had been perched on the branch it landed on.

There are raccoons everywhere and in one recent apartment, you could hear them scurrying across the roof at night which was scary when you didn't know what it was.


Also, lol, big difference in signage from the Midwest to West Coast.
In Illinois they would have signs up that say, "DANGER! Rattlesnakes!"
In California the signs say, "Rattlesnakes are our friends and they deserve space and respect"

:lol:
 
Pleasantly safe and boring. Most venomous animals around here are common European vipers and hornets, neither of which are aggressive unless provoked. Some wild boars around, but they're rarely dangerous. Lots of hares in the fields driving my dog crazy though. Generally, a typical central European fauna. Pheasants, swallows, martins, buzzards, ducks, swans and so on are common birds here.

The most dangerous living things in general are, next to humans of course, actually ticks. Fortunately there are vaccines against most common diseases they spread.
 
Allegedly there are tarantulas around here but I haven't seen one yet. If I did, I would probably start a rather large forest fire because that's the only way to deal with the buggers imo.
 
Sarin said:
Pleasantly safe and boring. Most venomous animals around here are common European vipers and hornets, neither of which are aggressive unless provoked. Some wild boars around, but they're rarely dangerous. Lots of hares in the fields driving my dog crazy though. Generally, a typical central European fauna. Pheasants, swallows, martins, buzzards, ducks, swans and so on are common birds here.

The most dangerous living things in general are, next to humans of course, actually ticks. Fortunately there are vaccines against most common diseases they spread.
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Oh, yeah. I didn't think about ticks. The Spring/Summer lyme disease warnings are an annual event around here.
 
In my in-town neighborhood we have roadrunners, small hawks, coyotes, raccoons, crows. On our mountain you can add bears, jack rabbits, rattlesnakes, ground squirrel, burrowing owls.
 
Used to have a hedgehog that lived in our garden. Haven't seen it for a year or 2.
Seeing foxes more frequently than we used to (which may be connected to not seeing any hedgehogs in recent years).
Good variety of birdlife although the seagulls are the noisiest and most visible. When they've nested on nearby houses they will divebomb anyone venturing too close on the nearby streets.
Used to get rats visiting from the nearby clifftops when we had a compost heap so we had to get rid of that.
 
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Lately I have been reading articles that bug populations have been collapsing across the board and anecdotally, that seems about right. The only thing that keeps me from saying I definitively notice less bugs is that I keep moving around so it's hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons from when I was young. But it definitely feels like there are a lot less flies and beetles and bugs than when I was a child.
 
Owls. How could I forget owls? A family of Long-eared owls settled on the trees across the road a few years ago, sometimes I can see them through the window. Got some nice photos of them when they bathed in the rain. And hedgehogs. It's not uncommon to come across them when walking the dog in the evening, unless it's winter. My dog quickly learned that they're nothing worth bothering.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
????
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That was my reaction, too.

Lexicus said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrowing_owl

There is also a charming book about them that I read as a kid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoot_(novel)
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TIL Carl Hiaasen writes kids' books.

hobbsyoyo said:
TIL

They're so beautiful

(btw I thought the name was like a sex position joke or something, no idea they're a thing)
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Okay, that wasn't my reaction.

hobbsyoyo said:
Lately I have been reading articles that bug populations have been collapsing across the board and anecdotally, that seems about right. The only thing that keeps me from saying I definitively notice less bugs is that I keep moving around so it's hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons from when I was young. But it definitely feels like there are a lot less flies and beetles and bugs than when I was a child.
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Way fewer bugs. I really cannot remember the last time I was bitten by a mosquito, for example, and I used to get a couple of welts every Summer when I was a kid, from scratching the bites too much. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I saw a bat, either, and I used to see those when I was a kid, too. One of my high school girlfriends once got a bat stuck in her room.
 
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