I was busy doing Very Important Work—okay, fine, I was working the Sunday crosswords—when I heard birds squawking and the neighbor dogs barking up a storm. Nala was inside so she and I rushed to the patio door to see if Timmy fell in a well or something.
It took a minute for me to see him, but the most elegant fox crossed our yard and hopped the fence into the open space behind us.
He—or she, I’m not sure—has been visiting us sporadically these last couple of months. The other day hubs and I were watching TV and Mr Fox trotted right across the patio like he owned the place.
He moves at a pretty good clip so I’ve never been able to get a good picture of him, unlike the deer who stand there forever posing for me. (Why they think I want a picture of them eating my lilacs I’ll never know. The jerks.)
We get quite a bit of wildlife around here at Casa Clark. I absolutely love to see the fox, but I am a bit nervous to think Nala might be out back on one of her walkabouts when he decides to visit. They’re close in size, but Nala might have a few pounds and couple inches on him.
My brother told me a story about my niece when she was a toddler. She was playing with a stick in the dirt, sitting on the shore while he fished. He looked back and she was perfectly fine, then he looked back again almost immediately and there was a fox sitting by her side, like he’d been there all day.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think Mr Fox is a threat like the coyotes who visit us. The coyotes scare me. They’re wily, and Nala is … um … not. We hear them howl and it’s so mournful and spooky. I’ve heard they will watch and learn your daily habits so they know when to come snatch up your chihuahua or toddler. Creepy.
We camped a lot when I was growing up and I loved getting up before the sun with my dad. He always had a pot of coffee going, and it was such a treat to sit there with him, sipping joe out of our tin cups while the world woke up. I knew to be quiet that early and one time Dad just pointed across the way at a fat porcupine waddling past, paying us no heed. Almost before he was out of sight, Dad pointed the other direction and there was a skunk picking his way through our campsite, not four feet from where we sat. We held our breath, but he kept a steady pace until he disappeared into the woods.
As an adult, during the Summer of the Skunks (when a wildlife guy came and trapped 38 mommy and baby skunks between our yard and two neighbors—I know!), I learned that skunks aren’t afraid of anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Especially not our two dogs who smelled faintly of skunk the rest of their lives.
I grew up in Colorado, and after moving around a bit, having a couple of kids, we were lucky that my company moved us back. But within a couple months, I questioned if we’d done the right thing because in one week there’d been a mountain lion loping down our street, a bull snake that stretched almost the entire way across our driveway, and our dogs kept killing prairie dogs and proudly presenting them to us.
Yikes. Any one of those gives me the willies, but all three? Oy vey.
A few years ago we even had a moose family wandering our town!
I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, except that I think sometimes I need to be reminded what a fascinating and marvelous natural world we live in, especially when we’re bombarded with deadlines and headlines, and concrete and steel so much of the time.
What kind of wildlife do you have where you live? Is there something you’d like to see up close and personal in your back yard?
all photos courtesy of the fine folks at Pexels
Chicks on the Case 
You have your very own free range zoo! That’s not a skunk! Unless it is upside down…I didn’t realize how creepy and wily the coyotes are, to watch and learn schedules. We have them in our mobile home park, and we usually try to warn anyone we see that is new and leaves pets outdoors that they are out at night, especially dawn and dusk.
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They’re very wily. I suspect they really do order stuff from the Acme Company to see their nefarious plans through.
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Yes about that skunk photo!
Coyotes are wily; we have a sign put up in our neighborhood as a warning.
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Be careful, Jen. I’m pretty sure they can read! You don’t want to give away your plans.
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I live in the center of a small town in eastern North Carolina. Our backyard used to be a natural area, with a lot of trees and shrubbery. One day I came home to find a deer standing in front of my garage. The critter had to pass a four foot chainlink fence to get there. Recently, we’ve had the brush cleared and a lawn put in, so now all we see is squirrels and an occasional rabbit. I spoke to a Zoology prof I know, and he told me that the population density of deer in our county did not vary with land use type, meaning that you’ll find as many deer in town ss in the woods.
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Tom, having watched them, a four-foot chain-link fence is nothing to an adult deer. They pop right over them. Before we put up our sunroom, our neighbor reported one came up on our deck right to our back door – and we have the same kind of fence. Same neighbor puts feed on the ground and then jump her fence with ease.
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That’s so true, Liz. We had a “deer fence” that was more than 6 feet tall that they could jump from a standstill as easily as we could step over a crack in the sidewalk. When they and some heavy snows knocked it down, we replaced it with a fence that had something like fishing line strung across at about 6-inch intervals. I watched with my own widdle eyes once as a huge buck with a full rack went BETWEEN those intervals. I checked later and the line was still intact. I have no earthly idea how he did it.
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We don’t get much wildlife where I live except for birds. I suppose that’s a good thing, since I don’t need anything snatching or attacking the cats. I have spotted a couple skunks like the one in your picture over the years. The last one that came around lived in my guest room for a couple weeks until I found a rescue to take him. I’m hoping he’s living the good life now.
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Beware of those skunks, Marla. They’ll take over your life.
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We have skunks, raccoons, possums, coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, and Canada geese. I enjoy watching the last three. The first four, not so much. We also have a couple of Great Blue Herons around, which are fascinating…except for the time I was riding my horse and one flew up, squawking, from the creek a few feet away. My horse leaped to the side so fast, that I was sitting on air for a moment. Thankfully, I had a death grip on the saddle horn and managed to regain my seat rather than hitting the ground. I’ve never really trusted Great Blue Herons since then.
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Annette, those heron are gorgeous, but that would be heart-stopping! We have these enormous Blue Spruce that have a million different nests in them. Every so often one will explode out of there and scare the bejeebers out of me. And they’re a fraction of the size of a heron!
I don’t envy your possums. I’ve never seen one, but when my mom traveled around in a motor home, one took up residence under their engine or somewhere and chewed all the wires! So rude. And I’m sorry, but they are nasty looking.
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Yes, they are. But they eat ticks so I’m happy to have them around.
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Possums eat ticks? I didn’t know that!
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We live in the country. I call our property “Knitting Hill Wildlife Sanctuary”. We have deer, bear, turkeys, fox, bobcats and coyotes along with birds of all kinds. I was out photographing our resident hawk one day and a GORGEOUS bobcat came out of bushes, and we watched each other for about 5 minutes. I took 53 pictures of her before she got sick of me, and walked off. I just stayed quiet and still, and it was all good. She gave me none of the “cat signs’ of being irritated or afraid. It was the most amazing encounter ever. I love my critters!
Carol
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I live in a part of Indianapolis that has a lot of mature woodlands nearby, so we get a lot of wildlife, especially for an urban area. Deer will cruise through the yard from time to time. The most I’ve seen at once is 6. Every Spring, a pair of mallards hang out for a few months in a portion of the back yard that holds water. It’s currently frog season, and every night they let us know they are in full voice! I’ve seen a fox only once. It was gorgeous!
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I’ve never lived around frogs, JC, but once we were camping at Lake Mojave, right on the beach. We spread out a tarp and went to sleep under the stars. What we didn’t know, however, is that every night a herd—pretty sure that’s right—of them migrated from wherever they were hiding down to the water … right over our tarp. I woke to a million little feet skittering across us and the crinkly fabric. I’d have loved to see a video of how fast I high-tailed it to the boat, where I slept every night thereafter! Don’t get me wrong, I love froggies. But too many of anything is terrifying, especially at night! We had to release 1500 ladybugs at night to try and save a tree once, and that creeped me out royally too.
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Carol, how magical that sounds! I put bobcats in the same category as foxes—so pretty they can’t be dangerous, right? We get the occasional bear sighting near us, but not too near, for which I’m thankful. And I’ve always heard that wild turkeys are mean critters. Is that true of yours?
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Although I live in the historic downtown core in Ottawa, we do get the normal squirrels, rabbits and groundhogs. There are deer, moose in the Ottawa suburbs. I was at NOLA Bouchercon in 2016 when I got a FB message from a friend. There was a black bear roaming downtown Ottawa just 1 block from my apartment! Fortunately, animal control was able to sedate the bear and send him back across the river to the Quebec forests. They thought he swam across the Ottawa River and climbed the steep river bank to make it to our part of the downtown.
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Ohmygosh, Grace! That would have been a shock to see! Glad they were able to relocate him instead of something worse. In CO when people refuse to lock up their trash, or leave bird feeders available or worse, leave food out for them, they’re just asking for those bears to be euthanized, which is always heart-breaking.
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I love watching the wildlife in our yard. I’ve seen deer, skunks, bunnies, chipmunks, birds of all kind (saw a gorgeous and giant red-headed woodpecker over the weekend), turkeys, and heard raccoons. My daughter swears she saw a mountain lion one night in our tree line. I’m doubtful of that one, but she’s very insistent.
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Reading Annette’s comment, I forgot about the Canada geese and the ducks.
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True, I forgot about the winged critters nearby. We have waaaay too many Canada Geese, ducks, huge crows, and an occasional white egret and Great Blue Heron along the rivers. Encountered some wild turkeys on the multiuse pathways in the ‘burbs, too.
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Liz, I forgot about the geese too! They’re everywhere around here, but luckily not in our yard. They make such a huge mess and are such a nuisance. And nothing seems to scare them, either!
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Grace, we have these enormous magpies in our yard constantly. They’re absolutely gorgeous, but real bullies to the other birds and squirrels. It’s easy to forget about the stuff that’s always around!
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Liz, I’ve always heard that where there are deer, there are mountain lions so I wouldn’t doubt her. And they are stealthy! Have you ever seen that photo taken by a family on vacation? They’re standing in front of a big bush— mom, dad, kids all smiling for the camera. When they got it developed, there was a mountain lion staring out from inside the bush. Nobody had any idea it was there. Good thing he wasn’t hungry!
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Grace, yes, the geese can make a huge mess. I remember there was a whole period in the spring where you couldn’t walk the river path where I used to work because of the landmines. The ducks are much more polite.
Becky, she swears it was a “big, tawny cat with a long tail.” I just can’t see THAT in our suburban neighborhood, but who knows.
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My across the street neighbors kept telling us for years about the huge raccoons they’d see climbing over our fence. We lived here for 25 years before we saw one. So …..
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What a lovely way to start the day, Becky–thank you!
We have squirrels–the ground and tree variety (and as I type the word for that critter, I can’t help but thinking what an odd one it is)–both of which cause Ms. Ziggy to go crazy with excitement and glee. We also have the occasional possum and skunk. But the worst are the dratted gophers, who love nothing better than to chomp on my newly planted vegetables. Sigh…
Have you seen those dog jackets that have spikey things coming out from the top to prevent coyotes from grabbing them? Pretty clever. But who knows if they actually work.
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I haven’t seen those, but it sounds like a good idea. I’m sure it was developed by someone who had a close call out on a walk.
I was just remembering the other day that we had a mole or vole or something (the wildlife guy called them something I’d never heard of) tunneling underground to get at our tender new roots after we redid our backyard. Apparently these things were all over the open space behind us. He pointed out the dirt piles from their digging that perfectly matched the one in our yard. My heart sank and I assumed we’d be overrun in a matter of days, but that was the only one we ever saw evidence of. Thank goodness, too! I’m sure they could make a mess out of things, like beavers who move in, build their dams, and ruin all the nearby houses by flooding them.
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Lesle, the squirrels taunt Koda from the trees, but they’re smart. The don’t dare come where he could catch them. Because he’s fast enough to do that.
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I have SO MANY pictures of Nala nose to nose with a squirrel. They’d taunt her so!
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Thanks for your post, Becky!
We’ve got possums, coyotes, raccoons, skunks, egrets, hawks, ducks, and geese. The worst was when we had a family of skunks who wouldn’t get out of our crawl space for the longest time…
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Egrets. I’m not sure I know what an egret is. (I use it all the time in crosswords, though!)
Our wildlife guy told us horror stories about people accidentally sealing up skunks when they were trying to fortify their defenses to keep them out. (One family had to tear out all their drywall because it was saturated with stink!) He said to sprinkle flour at the entryway under the deck or wherever, then check it to see their widdle footprints that show they’ve gone out for the day. Luckily we never had to do that because unless it’s obviously one set of prints heading out, it does not seem fail safe to me!
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Sorry I’m late to posting! Becky… love that fox. When it comes to nature in your backyard, I can relate. We leave next to the Santa Monica Conservancy. We’ve had coyotes, hawks, and even a bobcat in our backyard. It’s the downside of nature, since we have a chi mix doggy who only weight 10 lbs. I once heard fierce barking from our other dog, Wiley, who weighed a whopping 15 lbs. I ran out of the shower and saw him in a face-off with a coyote in our backyard! Talk about panic. I screamed for the family and desperately tried to get the pin lock out of the top of the sliding door. He must have heard the commotion because he gave up and left. But ever since, no pin lock in the slider and we always go out with our dog- especially since we’ve had a couple of other coyote incidents.
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Yikes, Ellen, that’s scary! Our fox jumps our side fence from the front which you can’t see from the yard until he comes around the corner. It’s still daylight when he passes through so it’s very conceivable one or all three of us might be standing right there on the patio. I suspect we’d be so surprised we’d freeze, but he’d be clever and sly and just scurry around us. At least that’s what I’d hope!
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We live in the woods in NH, so we have all the usual creatures. Especially turkeys—so many HUGE turkeys, and it’s mating season so they’re all strutting around. (They also fly, which is quite startling.) The coyote here are big, fat, and fluffy, so they look more like Huskies than Wile E. We also have something called a Fishercat, which you do not want to encounter (trust me). They are valued here bc they are the only predator of the porcupine and thus protect the trees. But I swear, Becky, if I saw a snake like the one you described I would move to Ireland permanently
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Wowza. I had to look up fishercat. They’re cute until they bare their teeth! Eating a porcupine seems like a double-dog-dare though. Not something I’d want to do. But now I kinda want to see how they do it….
The huskies made me laugh because on the news a couple weeks ago there was a story that exploded on social media about a wolf pack near, I think, Boulder. Some dope was driving along and way off in the distance saw something, took video, called it a wolf pack, and slapped it online. Turns out a woman breeds St Bernards near there and they got out again.
If it’s any consolation, Lisa, whenever I tell that story my husband says that snake was only about 3 feet long. I tell him, “Same diff.” Not a fan.
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All snakes are much too long! And what a cute story about the Saint Bernards. Oh, and in case you’re interested, Fishercats can climb trees and flip porcupines on their backs. Then they gut them. Nice, eh? We have a minor league ball team named after them. They don’t have quite as much bite.
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LOL!
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I had to look up fishercat, too! (As for snakes, I’ve actually run into a few rattlesnakes before.)
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It’s getting to be rattlesnake season here. A year or two ago I had to take Nala in to the doggy ER for hives of all things before 7am on a Sunday and the vet had already treated THREE (!!) dogs for snakebites! Scary.
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Fun post, Becky! I’m glad Nala hasn’t tried to tangle with any of the more dangerous animals! We have a lot of wildlife in the U.P., even that wander through the hedges where we live downtown. Last night, hubs took a pic of a shy little bunny in our parking lot.
When we lived just outside Memphis where possums are plentiful, we actually witnessed a possum “playing possum,” which I’d always heard of but had never witnessed. One morning about seven, our next-door neighbor let his two dogs out into the back yard. The dogs started barking like mad. We looked out and saw they were barking at a possum walking on top of the fence. The possum flipped over on his back and lay very still. The neighbor called the dogs in. In a minute or so, the possum flipped back over and continued walking slowly along the fence!
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It’s nice to know that’s a real thing, Vickie! I was never entirely sure.
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We have deer, turkey, chipmunks, squirrels, beavers, snakes, cranes, and groundhogs. When we first moved in, we saw a fox and heard coyotes. We actually had a peacock for a while and a flying squirrel. Now a lot of those are either playing it cool or have gone elsewhere. Of course, there are possums that turn up as roadkill and raccoons. Geese fly overhead. I love wildlife.
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Peacocks! How exotic! There’s someplace in CA—Palos Verdes, I think—where the peacocks have just taken over and have become a real nuisance. They’re so pretty, but they make the most godawful noise.
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That is fascinating and marvelous!! Things are pretty wild where I live. We have the requisite deer and such, but I just started seeing a fox on my morning walks up the butte, which is pretty exciting.
We used to have a family of skunks living under the woodshop adjacent to our garage. But that wasn’t fun-exciting. More like…fragrant-exciting.
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Agreed. There’s exciting and then there’s EXCITING!!
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What a great post, B! Enjoyed the run down and reminder of nature connections (and camping trips, aww).
LOVE seeing foxes, rabbits, and prairie dogs (who pop up so cutely from various holes and look at each other, like they’re having neighborly conversations) around the neighborhood. The raccoons and squirrels are constantly running along the back fence from one end of the block to the next. And we have many coyotes in the area, which, agreed, are a little more scary. When they yip at night, it give me chills. Once I was going to my car from the Whole Foods store at night, and a trio of coyotes came through the parking lot not ten feet away from me. Single file, following the leader who, thankfully, walked right past me. Whew.
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Wow, Cynthia! Scary. But also kinda cool!
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