Wildlife around your house

This is Alice. She comes around with her mom, Nancy, to get peanut snacks when I’m working on the back porch. When not eating peanuts, she chews on everything else.




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Baby mourning dove learned to fly

 

On my afternoon walk, spotted this wasp dragging this paralyzed spider to its untimely demise, being food for the wasps baby.

 

Nature is metal.

 

the circle of life

 

I was out paddle boarding this morning when this eagle swooped in for breakfast:

 

their are deer all around my house, but for some reason my wife wont let me hunt at home... so i have to drive 30 minutes during deer season. id much rather sit in the back 40

 

All packed up and ready to be re-homed in the forest preserves.

 

Girlfriend’s half-blind, willfully deaf, and senile chihuahua apparently went after our friendly neighborhood opossum during a middle of the night bathroom break in the back yard last night.

Kinda wish the opossum had taken a swipe at his stupid little face.

 

Cleaning up our trails yesterday for cross country skiing, and came across this little beauty in the leaves:

 

Sorry for the poor quality. Neither the wife nor I have seen coloring on a rabbit like this. It looks like someone painted him/her. Also note, I don't think he or she is old. Most rabbits in our area don't make it to old age between the owls and red tail hawks.

 

Could be leucism.

 

This cutie visited us for a couple of years. Think he was a house cat who just liked our swing. Never got close enough to find out and didn't really want to bother him.

 

My wife took this photo with her cell phone back in early September. These six buck (ranging from forked-horn to six-point) were in our driveway almost every day. Then, about a week before the opening day of hunting season, they all vanished! Go figure.

 

Visit from our friendly neighborhood possum.

 

Not my backyard but thought the story was interesting...link is safe.

‘Unheard of:’ Owl rides shotgun as helicopter pilot fights Creek Fire below | YourCentralValley.com

 

Not around my house, but I crossed paths with this mature female black widow last week at work.

 

Somewhere in this thread I mentioned we had an owl that sometimes hung out, & I posted an image or two IIRC.

Earlier today I was checking an outdoor spigot after our recent freezing temps (two nights down, one to go) and found a dead owl in my neighbor's yard. There are no signs of trauma, such as a cat attack.

Does anybody know if owls can freeze to death?

 

Interesting question.
Do you know what species you have down there?
The owls we have up here are very winter hearty.

 

The owl appears to be an Eastern, or Western, Screech Owl, going by the images I looked up. The gray and black markings look something like those on a tabbey cat. The owls that live this far south certainly aren't used to 15F.

I read about some species starving when prey is hidden under snow, or the cold makes prey become less active.