Critters and wildlife in your area - post your pics

[Panama]

H

Oh, and the other day the dogs were barking wildly. I always tell them, it better be the boogeyman or some really cool critter! This time it was.

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Oh my goodness! What a beautiful baby!

 

[MyBuddy]

Oh my God. Speak of the devil! Sitting on the back deck having coffee and hoppity hop comes hopping by! It's a good thing that I had just let Kali into the house. She would have had him in a second. Buddy, not so much. He didn't even notice him right away. And when he did, he just sniffed him. When he hopped away, he quickly lost him LOL I had to stop Buddy because he was twisting and turning trying to find him and I thought he was going to step on him! I had to save the Frog! LOL

You see how they change colors to match our deck. Other times they are a bright lime green. We're in the process of changing our deck completely. I wonder how it will change his color.

 

[GennyB]

That had to be a cool sight with so many!

Um cool? Not sure that is the word I would use. Actually almost creepy. They are huge birds that don't make a sound and just sat there staring at me with their bald red heads was kinda creepy. A bit later I watched them take off, now that was cool! They spread that 6 ft wing span and took off one at a time. I could hear the whoosh of their wings.
It's the black vultures that cause us problems. We have plenty right now with all the wildlife lost to the flooding. Farmers want to shoot them but they are protected. No doubt with the unusually large numbers of them right now, some will resort to shooting them.

 

[MyBuddy]

Um cool? Not sure that is the word I would use. Actually almost creepy. They are huge birds that don't make a sound and just sat there staring at me with their bald red heads was kinda creepy. A bit later I watched them take off, now that was cool! They spread that 6 ft wing span and took off one at a time. I could hear the whoosh of their wings.
It's the black vultures that cause us problems. We have plenty right now with all the wildlife lost to the flooding. Farmers want to shoot them but they are protected. No doubt with the unusually large numbers of them right now, some will resort to shooting them.

I'll bet that was kind of creepy! But I still would have liked to have been there. And the wingspan! Oh my God I love that! On any bird actually. Large wingspan are always so beautiful.

I don't know why they'd want to shoot them when they are eating up all the dead, decaying Wildlife. They actually do good.

 

[GennyB]

I don't know why they'd want to shoot them when they are eating up all the dead, decaying Wildlife.

Black vultures will eat live food. They attack, calves, kids (baby goats, not children), chickens and piglets. They're pests to farmers because they can carry disease from the dead they eat to the live animals.
I think there was a real problem last year in Indiana. Farmers were losing livestock left and right and struggled to get the permit to kill them. I don't remember all the details but something about black vultures are fairly new to the area and farmers didn't know how to deal with them or how to get through the red tape process to get the permit.

 

[MyBuddy]

Black vultures will eat live food. They attack, calves, kids (baby goats, not children), chickens and piglets.

Oh yeah, that would be a problem!

 

[MyBuddy]

Our daughter-in-law slipped with a knife and an avocado and stabbed herself in her hand. Severing a nerve in her finger. She had surgery Monday to repair it. Now we wait.

In the meantime, we've been keeping the kids. Giving her some time to heal. Tonight I was cooking dinner when the two oldest boys went out the garage and came back and yelling, "There's a large snake on the driveway!" Of course I grabbed phone so I can grab a pic! LOL. He was the first bull snake I've seen this year, I think! He was fat and Sassy! He was hissing and striking out and wanted to get away. But he kept heading toward us trying to get to grass. I didn't want him to go into the grass where I would lose him. I wanted to catch him and move him myself.

I had a hell of a time trying to keep him in one spot while I told one of the kids to run down to my barn to grab my snake catcher. I finally got a broom and was pushing him back onto the driveway, with him striking out at me and really getting mad! My husband had taken the youngest and gone down to a neighbor earlier to pick up a few bales of hay. While I'm waiting for the snake grabber, he pulls in the driveway. I'm screaming to him to go help the kids find my snake grabber!! I finally just took the broom and pinned him to the driveway to hold him in place. They finally came back with the grabber and I got a hold of him. But boy, he was a fighter! I walked him across the back of the property and threw him out in the woods!

The oldest taking his own video! He said it was the first snake that size that he's ever seen!


He was big!

I love that all I have to do is say, Smile, and my phone takes my picture! Comes in handy when one hand is busy trying to hold down a snake!


Pinned and not happy!



Carrying him to the other side of the property and into the woods! He was pretty heavy! I had my other grandson take this picture because I needed two hands!

 

[MyBuddy]

Geez, my husband and I were taking a break and sitting on our back when we heard a loud bang! I was like, what the hell was that?? Was that a bird?? My husband says, yea, right here. And points to the side of his chair! It hit the window behind us! I couldn't believe it. I mean, we are working on our deck and theres ladders, an umbrella and stuff that you would think he wouldn't fly past or into. Including us sitting there. But, unfortunately, he did and 10 minutes later he was dead.

He's beautiful! I think its one of my favorites. A Mockingbird.

 

[MyBuddy]

Looking closer, I'm not so sure that it's a Mockingbird. I thought maybe a barn swallow but he is much bigger. Any thoughts?

 

[MyBuddy]

My daughter-in-law has an app and she says it's a yellow-billed cuckoo! Wow that's something different. I don't know if I've ever seen that around here before!

 

[MyBuddy]

Well crap! I showed it to my daughter and she said what she read was that it was supposed to be put on the endangered species list! Oh my God. Such a shame that now there is one less.

 

[Rits]

I was just going to say, my phone says its an immature yellow billed cuckoo. The western population is endangered according to Wikipedia while the eastern population is not.

 

[MyBuddy]

I was just going to say, my phone says its an immature yellow billed cuckoo. The western population is endangered according to Wikipedia while the eastern population is not.

It's so amazing! I love wild birds and when we were in our last house we were sort of in the country but not as far out as we are now. We also had a wooded lot. So we had lots of birds and I kept a list of all the birds I spotted! So many were ones I've never seen in real life. So it was always a big hit with me. When we moved here there were only a few more that were new. And this one is a first! I'll be looking for more! I just can't imagine why he flew into that window. It's not like he had a clear view. There were many obstacles and an overhang to boot. I wish he would have lived. But if you would have heard that bang. You would have known he wasn't going to make it.

So how can you tell the difference between Western and Eastern? Just in where you live? I'm right in the middle. There must be some kind of difference between the two. Or they wouldn't say they were endangered when there's more on the other side of the country.

 

[Rits]

@MyBuddy

From wiki:

There is an ongoing debate regarding the taxonomic status of the western race and if it is distinct from those birds in the east. This question is significant to the conservation status of this species in the west, where it has declined to a tiny fraction of its population a century ago.[3][4][5] Populations of this species in western North America are in steep decline. The bird disappeared from British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon during the first half of the twentieth century. Eastern populations have declined as well, though not as precipitously. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing the western Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of Yellow-billed Cuckoos as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the service also has proposed establishing 546,335 acres in nine western states as critical habitat for the western DPS of the yellow-billed cuckoo.[6] However, controversy over the taxonomic status and heavy pressure from livestock and mining industries have caused the Trump administration to attempt to end the species' protections, while the FWS has proposed a review of the bird's listing.[7]

 

[MyBuddy]

Egads! It's a good thing it was sunny today and reflected this in my path!

 

[MyBuddy]

The barn swallows and dragonflies are always incredible at this time of year. After dinner for the past several days, they are swarming this area. The dragonflies are hard to see. The little flickers of light that you see are the dragonflies.

 

[MyBuddy]

And we always have a ton of butterflies. Here's only a couple..

 

[JanS]

The barn swallows and dragonflies are always incredible at this time of year.

And they're both great bug eaters. I'm sure that's what they're doing in your video.

 

[MyBuddy]

This morning, a little dark spot on the kitchen floor caught my eye! Another frog! I swear, these guys must walk in with us! I carried this one out on the deck and put him in a potted plant. After I had given him a little water. He looked a little pekid. Didn't know if he was going to make it. Then later, I find another one in my bedroom! WTH You guys! So I capture him and put him in the same pot as the other one. Who, by now, is looking much better. Just now I was going to go take a picture of the both of them and they're gone! Good for them. Now stay out of my house! You're cute, but you don't belong here. And my dogs will eat you.

 

[ksirr]

Not a critter but still wanted to share