SD backyard critters (apartment, houses, living)

[oddstray]

Originally Posted by futbol

The stray cat that we've been feeding found it. It was only a foot and a half long.

I shot it with a BB gun and came back later when it was dead and buried it.

The small ones are more dangerous. They shoot all their venom when they bite. The adults shoot only enough to take down their prey, which is typically less.

[futbol]

Originally Posted by oddstray

The small ones are more dangerous. They shoot all their venom when they bite. The adults shoot only enough to take down their prey, which is typically less.

That's what I've heard.

Sometimes the adults don't let any venom go, too.

My kids are older now, but I still kill the rattlers if they are in our yard. We live next to an open area, so this is always a risk.

[sdurbanite]

I jump when I see lizards in my garden Seeing a snake will make me scream like a 10 year old girl.

[T. Damon]

Originally Posted by sdurbanite

I jump when I see lizards in my garden Seeing a snake will make me scream like a 10 year old girl.

Haha. I once encountered a very large snake, (Gopher Snake I think) while walking at the edge of 26th street near the bottom of the hill and felt he was not going to cross the busy street successfully so got down there and grabbed him behind the neck to carry him safely to the grove area on the other side. You should've seen the wide eyed motorists nearly freaking out seeing a guy holding out a five foot snake as they drove by.

I love that other folks really appreciate the abundance of wildlife that we have right in the middle of the city. Between the coyotes, foxes, raccoons, owls, Red Tailed Hawks (of course) and Cooper Hawks all around here you can really feel like living in the wilderness.

My elderly neighbor feeds Morning Doves and that, as you might imagine, has attracted the attention of a couple of smart Cooper Hawks to take up residence nearby, often hanging out in our large trees. Living here you get used to the sudden explosion of panicked doves taking flight as the Hawks go in for the kill, and occasionally seeing the success as the hawk begins ripping apart the poor dove right in our tree again. Once I was laying in the hammock under our trees (and adjacent the dove feeding station at the neighbors deck above) and noticed a hawk a couple hundred feet away at the very top of a large Eucalyptus tree. And Damn if that hawk didn't suddenly take flight, dive down seemingly straight at me veering just at the very last second just a couple feet above my head to go in for the sneak attack below my branches and then up to the feeding station. I almost flipped right out of the hammock!

[bradleyyo]

Outside of the the urban parts of San Diego (North Park, Kensington, City Heights, etc), mountain lions, raccoons, and rattle snakes roam. A few weeks ago my friend saw a baby rattle snake along the road in Spring Valley and another friend saw a coyote in Mission Trails Park.

[oddstray]

Originally Posted by bradleyyo

Outside of the the urban parts of San Diego (North Park, Kensington, City Heights, etc), mountain lions, raccoons, and rattle snakes roam. A few weeks ago my friend saw a baby rattle snake along the road in Spring Valley and another friend saw a coyote in Mission Trails Park.

Racoons and rattlesnakes laugh at "urbanization". They're everywhere.

Mountain lions, not so much. But my friend in La Costa watched a bobcat walk across her backyard fence a short time ago.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

What a fun thread! We're on a canyon, and we get 'em all, coming up to our fence and sometimes through it (the smaller ones) and over it (climbing and flying critters): coyotes, skunks, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, tree rats. In the canyon there's occasionally a bobcat. In our trees we have nesting hawks, and I've thought for years they were sharpshinned hawks, but they're probably Cooper's. Redtails show up, too. Oh, and the crows, of course. A whole murder of them...This spring we had a lovely pair of nesting white-tailed kites. They have a very sweet call to each other, a hoooeeet whistle. Hummers are all over the place, but I didn't see any nests this year. Mockingbirds, orioles, doves, bluejays, owls, finches (nesting every year in our awnings), it's a zoo! And then there are the snakes. Occasional rattlers, and some form of garden snakes. Lizards of all sizes, including one we thought was a snake because it was so big. But it had legs!

We used to feed the finches; then came the squirrels who ate the bird seeds, got fat and started having babies under the deck, then came the hawks who ate the squirrel babies, then came the snakes and owls who also wanted a free meal. It became a slaughterhouse! So we stopped the feeding, and now things have quieted down. Just the occasional squirrel lunch going on.

(On our property in Idaho we have black bears, cougars, moose, elk, deer, and wolves passing through...Ospreys and golden eagles soar overhead...It's a little bit different...)

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Wow!! A Hawk (couldn't identify but smaller than a Coopers) did a drive by this am on either a sparrow or a finch. I heard my wife say real loud, "WOW!" It busted through the tree and all I saw was a big puff of feathers settling to the ground!

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by Clark Fork Fantast

What a fun thread! We're on a canyon, and we get 'em all, coming up to our fence and sometimes through it (the smaller ones) and over it (climbing and flying critters): coyotes, skunks, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, tree rats. In the canyon there's occasionally a bobcat. In our trees we have nesting hawks, and I've thought for years they were sharpshinned hawks, but they're probably Cooper's. Redtails show up, too. Oh, and the crows, of course. A whole murder of them...This spring we had a lovely pair of nesting white-tailed kites. They have a very sweet call to each other, a hoooeeet whistle. Hummers are all over the place, but I didn't see any nests this year. Mockingbirds, orioles, doves, bluejays, owls, finches (nesting every year in our awnings), it's a zoo! And then there are the snakes. Occasional rattlers, and some form of garden snakes. Lizards of all sizes, including one we thought was a snake because it was so big. But it had legs!

We used to feed the finches; then came the squirrels who ate the bird seeds, got fat and started having babies under the deck, then came the hawks who ate the squirrel babies, then came the snakes and owls who also wanted a free meal. It became a slaughterhouse! So we stopped the feeding, and now things have quieted down. Just the occasional squirrel lunch going on.

(On our property in Idaho we have black bears, cougars, moose, elk, deer, and wolves passing through...Ospreys and golden eagles soar overhead...It's a little bit different...)

I'm so jealous you have kites. I had a Mt Lion go by me Sat AM but since I was in a tree stand on BLM land I can't officially count it LOL.

[Clevelandgal]

Sooooo. We've talked about the spider increase this year, so what about other bugs? I have not seen a single cockroach since moving here in late 2010. This last weekend I was watering a large potted plant on my patio, and a FL size cockroach slowly drags it self it from under the pot. Granted it was on deaths door, but it was horrifying. I know from living in FL that these things are evil. They FLY when you try to kill them, and often right at YOU. Luckily, the dutiful husband killed it, but it took a lot.

As I tried to let the trauma pass, I went about my life. but today, at work, I encountered an even mightier beast, larger than ever seen after 13 years in FL. I was heading out an interior door and this thing raised on its hind legs and literally seemed to be waiving its fists! Keep in mind my office is at least 200 yards from a door or window to the outside. Someone stomped on it, an adult male weighing perhaps 180 lbs. it made an appropriate crunch. But then it shook itself off, and raised himself. A women, a mother of 5, thus very powerful, finished him off. Let me just say, I think the humidity has done frightening things.