Our new neighbors...

[dogs4life]

Not the cute, friendly, furry type I'm used to. We do have the rats, hare, mice and the occasional cat & dog

-These 2 critters were in our backyard, the snake surprised poor Jeff while sitting in the yard.
* We think this is a large California Kingsnake, it was 3-4 ft long! It had the tiniest head, I didn't expect such a small head on a snake that long.


*some type of blue belly lizard


-This tiny guy ventured into the house, thankfully I found him before Hank did. I don't know what type of frog but it was very active and difficult to catch.


In the last week we have had critter from every animal group visit the house. What's next, a fish flying through the door?

Just last night I found ticks in my daughters room...Ewwww! I don't think we've ever had this many critters near the house before, not even at the ranch or at the family cabins. I swear there are more bugs at this new place than any backcountry campground I've ever visited

Hank's loving all the critters, they keep him busy!

[Ritz459]

Those are some pretty neat creepy crawlies! The frog is just adorable. LOL Probably a tree frog of some kind...we have lots of little (but loud!) tree frogs out here that love to sit in our gutters and sing their hearts out.

We've got snakes out here too.... we had a milk snake in our garage last fall and my dad trapped it in a bucket and brought it inside to show us all. My mom was not amused and I'm surprised she didn't faint on the spot. I wish we had lizards out here...that would be neat.

But ticks. Yuck. We don't have any flea problems, but the ticks are horrible. The dogs get them horriblely in the summer if I forget to put flea and tick stuff on them. I actually had a tick on me once...it was on my neck. My mom had to drown it in achohol and then pull it off...that was NOT fun.

[Swiftwind]

Oh my gosh, I don't think I'd cope too well with that many critters around!! Bugs and creepy crawlies freak me out a bit! That snake would have killed me half to death if it crossed my path! Same with the frog!

[Radar_Love]

Oh lots of wildlife!!! We have some snakes around this area, but mostly deer, rabbit, mice, and such. So, the frogs and lizards are a new thing to me....great pics anyway.

[Shmee]

King snakes are a good thing to have around. Kind of a goodluck/badluck thing really. The reason he's probably hanging around is he's found other snakes to make meals out of. They are known to eat Rattle snakes for dinner so that is definitely a good thing. The bad thing here would be that there's agood chance that rattle snakes are close by. King snakes will also eat birds, mice and lizards so hopefully that's the case.
I have a veritable Animal Planet in my backyard as well, but i'm usually devoid of snakes. So far we've come across Turtles (3 different kinds) a rare species of Blue Night Heron and baby birds galore . Not to mention the nightly banterings and flipped trashcans from the local raccon and possum populations. Did I mention squirrels, chipmunks, foxes, muskrats? Oh my..

Great pic's by the way
-Shmee

[Sentry]

love the lizard and the frog...not so fond of the snake!

[dogs4life]

Honestly, we freaked about the snake I figured if I got a good picture of it, I could ID it before we let Hank, the cat or Sam back out to play. I'll have to ask the neighbors about rattle snakes, thanks for the heads up Shmee

Ritz- We've been tick checking, hopefully we don't get one ::crossing fingers:: I think that is a tree frog, we looked it up but it didn't have the same markings as the pictures, so maybe it was a juvenile. It sure was cute but very wriggly and fast.

Sentry - We're not too into snakes either, the frogs make beautiful music at night and the lizards sure are fun. Hank thinks they're intruders so he barks at them and chases them off, I caught the little bugger marking one yesterday, silly dog.

Swift - Erin, I think you'd have liked the little frog, he was soooo cute. But I know what you mean, if I didn't invite it into the house, it's not too welcome to stay Shew little critters, out!

Radar - I'll trade you the snake for the deer

[Sentry]

We are lucky to only get bullfrogs but we do deal with rattlers once in a blue moon.

[Ritz459]

I went outside last night to bring Chloe in and almost stepped on two tiny little tree frogs on our back porch. My sister was with me and we both said, "How cute!!" at the same time. LOL I love little tiny tree frogs.

We get turtles in our yard occasionally...I've seen some painted turtles once or twice (once being a tiny baby no bigger than a fifty cent piece), but the snappers are more commong. We've had some snapping turtles come through our yard that are bigger than a large dinner plate. Luckly the dogs know to leave them alone. Although come to think of it, Chloe hasn't met one yet so if she ever does it should be very interesting. lol

[PawNclaws]

Hank thinks they're intruders so he barks at them and chases them off, I caught the little bugger marking one yesterday, silly dog.

lmao, that is to funny !!

Ticks here are not that bad and fleas.. haven't seen one in 2 years !! We see lots of Rabbits here and they are surely not welcome. They did some damage on the garden this year, even though we fenced it, one found it's way in. We see mostly insects (of course lol), Deer and a few Elk on the hill there. Here lots of Coyots too.

We use to get Softshells in our back yard when we lived in Florida, a few more including 1 snapper. The softshell was huge, snapper was on the small size but bigger then a small saucer.

[Radar_Love]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can just have the snake...I sure don't want it! LOL. I prefer the furry wildlife to the scaley!

[Swiftwind]

Originally Posted by Ritz459

We get turtles in our yard occasionally...I've seen some painted turtles once or twice (once being a tiny baby no bigger than a fifty cent piece), but the snappers are more commong. We've had some snapping turtles come through our yard that are bigger than a large dinner plate. Luckly the dogs know to leave them alone. Although come to think of it, Chloe hasn't met one yet so if she ever does it should be very interesting. lol

That would be such a bizarre sight for me! I can't imagine turtles just wandering around the backyard.... it sounds odd!

[Ritz459]

Originally Posted by Swiftwind

That would be such a bizarre sight for me! I can't imagine turtles just wandering around the backyard.... it sounds odd!

lol It's a little odd for us as well, but really cool. What was really neat was when we found a baby snapper. He was maybe three inches in diameter and he thought he was 10x that size! lol Such a spunky little thing. We haven't seen them as often as we used to most likely due to the increase in housing out here.

Oh, and we get cows in our yard sometimes too. Our neighbors now have an electric fence, but before they just had barbed wire and the young cows could slip right out...my mom woke up at two o'clock in the morning one time to a cow mooing in our backyard. She got up, called the neighbors, and we had a nice neighboorhood "catch that cow" party at two o'clock in the morning. LOL

[Lunachick]

Aw lucky! I'd love to have snakes and such just wander right in. That's a beautiful cali king. I almost got one as a pet but opted for a corn snake instead. King snakes do look funny around the head. They have no distinguishable neck. This is because, as Shmee said, they eat other snakes. They are the cannible of the snake world. We have a number of species of snake up here, including the Massassauga rattler, but I never see any of them except for garter snakes and even them, I haven't seen since I was a kid.
We do have bullfrogs though. I hear them in the pond in the local park. Saw a dead one on the side of the path. Don't think I've seen any turtles but I know we have those. Snappers seem to be one of the most commonly spotted.
I think one of the weirdest critters I've seen out and about were owls. I was coming home from a visit to Toronto one day. It was around 12pm and we stopped at a stop sign on a back road, and down comes an owl, in broad daylight. Lands on the stop sign. I always thought they were nocturnal, but there it was.
It happened again just last spring. My sis (Faol) and I were walking the dogs through the park. The path was pretty shaded cause the tree branches meet above our heads. We saw a couple people looking up at one tree. So we went to see what it was. It was an owl, just sitting 10ft up in the tree.

[Ritz459]

I've heard some owls out here (at ungodly times in the morning for a dog's potty break) but have never seen one. That would be neat.

I was out walking Chloe a couple of weeks ago around dusk. I saw/heard this weird thing flitting about over my head. I looked up and it was a bat! Chloe wasn't too interested in it though...she was too busy freaking out over some neighbor's dragging out their trashcan to the curb.