Wild animals are taking over/visitors every night/your visitors?

[Sparky472]

Occasionally we have deer and mongoose but the worst are the feral cats our neighbor is feeding. Just feeding. No health care, no fixing, just feeding.
Two litters were born in the last 3-4 weeks.

I lived in some student apartments many years ago that were just overrun with feral cats. I used to call it the cat colony. They were everywhere, easily hundreds of them. We moved out and a couple years later moved back when I went back to school. The cats were gone and raccoons had taken over.

 

[BigDaddyLH]

If I smell something skunky, it's the neighbours.

 

[gimmeatele]

I think I’ve been cursed by nature or something…

Or the animals are trying to take over…

I live in the woods but I’ve never seen this much wildlife in such a short span

It all started after I made the thread about finding a baby snake in my room, maybe I angered it? Since then in a span of a week or two I’ve had animals around or in my house, I hope this thread doesn’t anger them…

So it started with the snake, I released it and a couple days later while moving stuff around it pops up again dangling in my face (I screamed like a little girl even though I’m not afraid of snakes)

Then this week starting Saturday I see the bunny which is around sometimes so not too odd, then Sunday…the raccoon! A raccoon was moseying around the back yard (never seen a live one here) then… Monday the bats! TWO BATS! Flying around the house! At 1:30 in the morning (Window on a crack)

And finally the strange creature of last night… I was sitting on the back porch when what sounded like a strange turkey (woddle woddle woddle) cam rushing through the back yard out to the front and into the small tree line out there, I went looking and couldn’t find what it was (a wounded bird? Escaped chicken?)

I CAN’T WAIT for what’s going to visit next!

Am I cursed by nature? Non of them have really caused any harm

Do you have regular wild visitors?

Could be worse… at least I don’t have lions tigers or bears

You have been accepted by them, a very privileged position

 

[Cam]

There will always be something that sees you as edible.

 

[schmee]

Mostly Deer, coyotes, bald eagles and millions of toads and frogs here. Also thousands of ducks, geese, and swans.

 

[telemnemonics]

If I smell something skunky, it's the neighbours.

At work I smell them skunks all the time and even indoors.
How in heck do they sneak in without being seen?

 

[dougstrum]

We are in the mountains, surrounded by woods and meadows. All manner of creatures from bears to chipmunks, buzzards to songbirds.
We make the dog stay indoors at night, or we would get no rest!

 

[Greggorios]

We're in a "woodsy" area where there has always been a lot of wildlife; deer, fox, coyote, lynx-bobcat, black bear, fisher cats, wild turkey, etc. There seems to have been a definite increase in animal activity over the past few years. Some of this we've noted through direct observation. I watched an adult red fox (beautiful critter) in broad daylight (10am) 2 weeks ago perched on a hill not more than 40 feet from the house stalking prey-not usual behavior. There's also much chatter, pics and vids on the local neighborhood internet forum about more frequent black bear and coyote sittings.

I'm not sure what accounts for the increased activity. Some of it may be perception as so many people have begun getting cheap security cameras these days. People may just be more aware of activity that was there all along. Maybe with more and more folks working from home there's more old food and garbage being put out. I know for my part that I no longer spend as much time walking around the trails on my wooded property with the dogs since the tick problem just keeps getting worse and worse so there's not as much people/domestic dog scent to warn them away. We've also seen a real increase in snakes in the area too.

 

[oldunc]

All sorts- there's the pestiferous- deer and gophers mostly, and roof rats. There's raccoons and skunks and foxes and coyotes, an occasional bobcat. My yard is a haven for alligator lizards, gopher snakes on occasion (a rattler once). Occasionally quail, but unfortunately they usually don't last long. Birds of all sorts, hawks and owls are the biggest; constant supply of hummingbirds. The squirrels are the most entertaining. Turkeys have been trying to infest the neighborhood for years; so far I've kept them chased away. Never seen a mountain lion, but I hear that they're moving nearer.
The deer are an ever more serious problem; irrigated gardens have created a population far in excess of what the area could naturally support, and many of the residents, who apparently get their ideas of nature from Disney cartoons, actually go out of their way to harbor them. Not only are the deer an incredible pest and potential danger, they are attracting more large predators into the area. A lot of pets have been lost, especially to coyotes- someday it may be someone's child.

 

[kookaburra]

javelina or coyote wanders by occasionally

Even they don’t make it into central Phoenix where I live. As you head closer to the edges, you may find them infrequently coming down the washes though. If you’re on the edges of say, Scottsdale, near the McDowell Mtns, yes, then we do have occasional visits. Maybe a Bobcat on rare occasion.

My wife lived at Taliesin West for a year. That’s in the scrub just outside city limits, and hosted a cornucopia of wildlife. She loved it!

 

[rcole_sooner]

At work I smell them skunks all the time and even indoors.
How in heck do they sneak in without being seen?

There is an apartment complex we pass on the way to a Sam's Club that must have several skunk families living there. You can smell them from the interstate with the windows rolled up.

 

[moosie]

We have woods, privacy, and a small pond. We seem to be on a route from point A to point B. Point A is the 500 acre Nature Conservancy preserve across the road. I don't know where B is. Just "on the other side".

We have everything from tiny spring peepers, big fat toads, and impossibly cute, laid back tree frogs (the kind with the sticky pad toes), to black bear and even a young (ten foot tall) MOOSE. He moved more like a horse than a deer. Knobby knees...

Our garden was home to an orphaned deer one spring. He just kept coming back to the water, and the safety. Looking right in my office window, curious. Still had all his spots. He returned many times that summer, and would just hang for hours. The following year a full grown male came with stub antlers and a couple females in tow. I always thought it might have been him, showing them where he grew up

The turkeys are thriving in our woods. We hear them gobbling constantly, and in a month the parents will be marching the little ones across the lawn...

We normally feed the birds, but a recent bear visit... well our wrought iron pole is a pretzel, and he took the feeders with him.

 

[trapdoor2]

Tuesday, the neighbor across the street said they spotted an alligator in the lake (5 acre pond, really). He was feeding the fish and he videoed it swimming (posted to the HOA facebook page) to within a few yards of him. Looks around 5' long.

Now the HOA has started the relocation process with SCDNR, who said 5' isn't dangerous...

We have a neighborhood fox, bunnies, hundreds of squirrels, birds, snakes, frogs and turtles, possum, etc.

 

[Telekarster]

Tuesday, the neighbor across the street said they spotted an alligator in the lake (5 acre pond, really). He was feeding the fish and he videoed it swimming (posted to the HOA facebook page) to within a few yards of him. Looks around 5' long.

Now the HOA has started the relocation process with SCDNR, who said 5' isn't dangerous...

We have a neighborhood fox, bunnies, hundreds of squirrels, birds, snakes, frogs and turtles, possum, etc.

I did a chip shot on a golf course in FL a few years ago, over a body of water, and conked a gater in the head! LOL!!! He was none too pleased....

 

[rcole_sooner]

Why I don't go too far into the creeks looking for my lost ball, that and poison ivy. I think this is just a common water snake, but there are cottonmouths around too.

This was out in the rough one day.

While waiting for my buds who hit their ball in the drink.

 

[rcole_sooner]

This lady gets to stay.

This lady had to go. Too close to the house ... on the house.

 

[rcole_sooner]

This is actually a lizard, a glass snake.

 

[rcole_sooner]

Look at that ball of babies she's got.

 

[rcole_sooner]

These get to stay too, but I knock their webs down, until they move them out of the way. And they do, they learn.

 

[Telekarster]

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This lady gets to stay.
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This lady had to go. Too close to the house ... on the house.
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Whoa! A Black Widow! Wow.... how common are they were you live? Those things freak me out man...