 Our Urban Wildlife
Little critters keep us entertained
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The Story of Our Critters
It is unusual to see possums during the day as they normally come out during the night. However, one day we saw two possums in the back yad during the daytime. We are happy to have these beneficial creatures frequent our territory. Raccoons also come out mostly at night. Sometimes they are just passing through, but they can be very destructive to lawns when they dig up the turf looking for grubs to eat. There were days the entire front lawn was torn up like that in the photo on the right. The severity of the damage is shown with that kind of damage over most of the yard. I finally found a solution; dust the yard with grub killer. No grubs, no damage. We have seen many beautiful birds come through our territory. Some of the most beautiful are the cedar waxwings, oriels, woodpeckers and flickers. Many of the finches and siskins are very colorful with bright yellow and red feathers. They seem to come through twice a year as part of their migration. A favorite is the black-capped chickadee as well as our woodpecker. Crows are fun to watch as the strut around the yard like they own it. For a couple of years, we had a crow that was using the backyard fountain to prepare a meal. The crow would fly in and land on the fountain and drop something in the water. It didn't take long to figure out that the crow was stealing dry pet food from a neighbor. Then it would drop a piece in the fountain to wait for the food to get soft. Once the crow had finished eating the piece of food, it would fly off to steal another piece. This kept going until the crow got its fill or the pet food ran out.
We have a collection of hummingbirds that live in our local trees. They are very territorial with a different bully guarding each hummingbird feeder. Otherwise, we enjoy watching them feed. We have come up with names for some of the little birds such as: The helicopter - it never lands to feed -- The long drinker - it feeds with one long drink -- The dipper - it drinks with many dips of its beak and so on. We've witnessed the hummingbird courting ritual a few times. A male hummer will fly up to about 100 feet and hover. Suddenly, the male will dive straight down at full speed and stop just above the ground and hover This action id repeated several times. With a display like that, how could a lady hummer no be impressed?
The squirrels are fun to watch, especially the juveniles as they stumble around while playing. We've also enjoyed watching the squirrels trying to find a way around our "squirrel proofing" devices we use to keep the bushy-tailed critters from getting into the birdseed. The squirrels often participate in two kinds of chases; a territorial dispute results in a hig- speed chase or a slow pursuit where the female is playing, "Hard to get." I placed a special squirrel feeding feature on the edge of the yard. An ear of corn hangs from above requiring the squirrel to leap up to grab the corn. The ear of corn is suspended from a spring giving the little critter an up-and-down ride. It's fun to watch. Lynn witnessed a startling event when a coyote came over the fence on one side of the back yard. Then ran at full speed across the yard with a squirrel in its mouth and it climbed over the fence on the other side. Coyotes began coming out in our neighborhoods during the pandemic when there was very little human presence in the area. Most people were hunkered down inside their houses during the worst of the pandemic. Very few cars were on the streets leaving them open to wildlife. It seems coyotes use nearby creeks as transportation corridors before coming up into our neighborhoods.
We have a cooper's hawk that likes to eat our finches. I thought it might go after our squirrels, but they ignore the squirrels. And the squirrels pay no attention to the hawks. A juvenile hawk put on a fun show while learning to hunt. It would crash into things while pursuing prey and one time got a foot caught in a bird feeder while trying to catch a small bird. We've had quite a collection of squirrels over the years. There was one that came around for four of five years that had only three legs. A close-up photo shows that the missing right-front leg is actually very small and deformed; a possible birth defect. The squirrel didn't seem to be slowed down by its handicap. The little creature seemed to get around the trees as well as a normal squirrel. I also found a very young squirrel that might have left the nest prematurely. However, it seemed to get around okay and could rapidly climb in the trees. A couple of times I looked out and saw a neighborhood cat sitting under a bird feeder looking up in anticipation of a bird flying into the feeder. Funny thing, birds never showed up while the cat was there. I did see the cat chasing a mouse across the driveway. There are many more stories of urban wildlife shenanigans that keep us entertained.
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