the Weekend 27/28 /11/08

[Caravan Ray]

I just saw a hedgehog!

I have never seen one before. It was bizarre. Like a cross between a rat and a scrubbing brush. I was walking home from the pub where I went to watch the New Zealand Warriors in the Australian Rugby League semi-final (bad news - the Many-Warringah Sea-Eagles thrashed them) and this thing scuttled our on the path in front of me. I stopped to look at it - and I could see it's little hedgehog brain ticking over going "Uh oh...I've beed spotted - curl up in a ball time" . And it curled up in a ball. In the middle of my driveway! Hilarious! I had a bit of a fiddle with him to see what his spines felt like - then he scuttled off into my garden, where my dog will probably eat him.

NZ has a lot of feral animals we don't have in Aus - like hedgehogs and ferrets and stoats and stuff, but I miss seeing proper native animals like I used to. When I had a farm, we had Pretty-Faced Wallabies who used to graze in our back yard. Even when living in the middle of Brisbane, we had Ring-Tailed Possums and flying foxes in our garden. And I am even missing the hundreds of Rainbow Lorikeets that used to sit in the tree outside our loungeroom making heaps of noise.

Apparently there is a colony of penguins in New Plymouth - but I haven't seen them yet. And seals. I've seen a dead one, but no live ones here yet.

QotD: Do you have any interesting wildlife that visits your house, or near your house?

I know that Jack Shite lives near Californian Sea Otters They were awesome!

[Ross]

As some of you know I occasionaly play the appalacian (mountain, fretted) dulcimer. I'm excited, because today I am headed to a dulcimer festival in Dana Point CA, where I'll get to be in some classes - all I've ever done was get the thing, buy some books, listen to Joni Mitchell. I'm excited to see what I can learn and then hppefully apply to this weeks' fight.

QOTD: not a lot of wildlife around here, but there is a local flock of green parrots that frequents our neighborhood. One morning I drove past the wire they were sleeping on and estimated about 300. Occasionally they feed on the seeds from the tress in our backyard.

[Spud]

In addition to the everyday squirrels, we get entertained by the occasional raccoon. But the other night, two coyotes came out of the woods to sniff around. THAT was exciting. No live rats since we tore down the practice shed, btw. Thank God.

[Niveous]

groundhog.jpg (128.25 KiB) Viewed 809 times

Frequently found in my backyard.

Also seen in my neighborhood: deer and possums.

[rone rivendale]

QotD: Well the only wildlife I've seen around my house is squirrels, bunnies, and last week I spotted a rather large frog when I was taking out the trash to the alley. If it counts, there are crap-tons of locusts here. They terrorize the town at night with their noisy screams(or whatever you'd call that).

[king_arthur]

Let's see, we've had a couple of snakes, one of them a big rattlesnake in the back yard. Scorpions, including one in the bed that got me on the finger. We have coyotes in our neighborhood, owls and hawks. I found myself about six feet away from a two-foot tall owl early one morning, and frequently see them sitting on the saguaros and chimneys.

The past year or so, our neighborhood (and several other areas in the Phoenix suburbs) have started having javelinas, these foul-smelling wild pig creatures that are about the size of a medium size dog. I was out walking our dogs early one morning and came upon about a dozen of them looking through people's front yards for food (I think it was garbage day). We turned around and went back home, I've heard they can be pretty nasty if they're annoyed, and there really were about a dozen of them that we kinda sent stampeding back into the desert...

Charles (KA)

[Billy's Little Trip]

My dogs scare away most wildlife in my yard. But we do get raccoons an opossums running back and forth on my fence. Drives the dogs nuts. We had a pet opossum named Hank. His mother and his siblings were killed by a coyote but somehow Hank lost his grip and fell off his mother in our yard while the mother was trying to get away. By the time we saw the coyotes eating the mother, she was gone...literally. Then we found Hank laying in the garden. So we nursed him back to health and hand fed him until he could eat on his own. We kept him in a cage and as he got big enough to fend for himself, we left the cage open so he could leave whenever he wanted, but he stayed around for about a year, then we would come out and there would be a female hanging out with him all the time sharing his food and lounging around his cage. But she wouldn't stay long. Then one day we saw Hank waddle along the fence on his usual routine, and we didn't see him again for weeks at a time. Then months later the female was back in his old cage with babies in tow, so we put out food for her. Then Hank came back for a few more visits, then we never saw him again. That's been over 5 years now. We'd see the food eaten that we left out, so they would come in the wee hours, but when they stopped coming around, we took the cage down.

[jack]

yeah, like ray said, we got otters, seals, sea lions, and the occasional great white.

we've had some recent mountain lion sitings in east santa cruz. and i've got the almost nightly traffic of neighborhood raccoons and feral cats down by back alley. and we get lots of pelicans, which are cool. and lots of deer up at UCSC. i live in a pretty wild place (literally and figuratively) so i get my share.

[Reist]

qotd: We sometimes get deer, but the most notable is a mangy squirrel who throws himself against our window for no reason.

[fluffy]

Ants, spiders, rats, termites. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary for an urban setting, really.

Also when I bought my condo I had to fill out disclosure forms indicating that i'd received the disclosure forms about the possibility of there being endangered salamanders nearby. The disclosure forms I received said that the possibility was zero. CALIFORNIA.

[Billy's Little Trip]

qotd: We sometimes get deer, but the most notable is a mangy squirrel who throws himself against our window for no reason.

Maybe he thinks the world is jail and he's trying to breakout.
....*taps head with finger* dumb like a squirrel.

[jack]

fluffy's also got a couple peregrine falcons in his hood (downtown SOMA). and sea lions (at the wharf). and bison (in the park). and wild parrots (telegraph hill)

[Spud]

fluffy thought we meant INSIDE HIS APARTMENT, jack.

[Caravan Ray]

QOTD: not a lot of wildlife around here, but there is a local flock of green parrots that frequents our neighborhood. One morning I drove past the wire they were sleeping on and estimated about 300. Occasionally they feed on the seeds from the tress in our backyard.

I didn't know there were parrots in the US. Are they native, or is it a feral population?

[Caravan Ray]

QotD: Well the only wildlife I've seen around my house is squirrels, bunnies, and last week I spotted a rather large frog when I was taking out the trash to the alley. If it counts, there are crap-tons of locusts here. They terrorize the town at night with their noisy screams(or whatever you'd call that).

Frogs? Locusts? Have you been doing something to displease Jehova? You better check your body for boils and stop coveting your neighbour's ass.

[fluffy]

I actually don't live in SoMa anymore. I moved to Bernal Heights a few months ago.

[roymond]

There are black sea horses in NY harbor and they seem to have discovered many whales just off Long Island.

And some of the local high schools kids are pretty freaky.

[drë]

i live about 5 minutes from this place... does this count?
the "Alligator Capital of the world" http://gatorland.com
how do you say "Tourist trap" in New Zelandele?

[fluffy]

oh and i thought we were talkingf about back yards

[Caravan Ray]

how do you say "Tourist trap" in New Zelandele?

Te Pahu

[Ross]

QOTD: not a lot of wildlife around here, but there is a local flock of green parrots that frequents our neighborhood. One morning I drove past the wire they were sleeping on and estimated about 300. Occasionally they feed on the seeds from the tress in our backyard.

I didn't know there were parrots in the US. Are they native, or is it a feral population?

Totally feral.

[fluffy]

There's actually a very good documentary about them, entitled "The Parrots of Telegraph Hill," oddly enough. The theory is that someone had pet parrots and got sick of taking care of them so let them out the window, and amazingly enough they thrived in the San Francisco climate.