Banner Sponsors
For artists and collectors sponsored by Intercal...your mohair supplier and Johnna's Mohair Store
I feel it's my duty to remind you that, as I illustrated once previously, underneath their cheek-pinchingly cute exteriors, raccoons are actually the Evil Spawn of Lucifer, as shown below.
Past Time Bears:crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup: I was afraid you'd see those raccoon photos!
Posts: 8,574Good show! Fancy that! Great picture....thank you for sharing!
di
Past Time BearsWell, squirrels we have by the tons, so thought I'd post some from my yard.
ToadBriarRabies is more of an issue in the eastern US - it's just not spread out west so much.
Sue Ann, I love those big orange-bellied fox squirrels! They are so cheeky.
Sometimes we find wildlife right outside the door
Sometimes it comes in!
Matilda Huggington-beareKim, what type of lizard is that?? Loved your squirrel pics sueann. I dont have mammals in my garden other than one wee mouse.
I did count 9 different species of bird in the garden at one moment yesterday. I have been seeing these wee finch's visiting the last week or so. They are a kaki green with red beaks. They are so tiny and so fast I havent been able to get a pic yet. I will though.
Love the echidna. I havent seen one in the bush /garden. But I have seen them in the zoo.
I risked my life saving a hedgehog from being skittled by a car one time in NZ. It never accured to me that if a car doesnt stop for a hedgehog it may not stop for me. :doh: Even if I ended up inhospital for years with everybone broken I would never regret my decision to protect another living creature. As it was the car missed me by half an inch.
Loved all the 'in my garden photos'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is one of my favourite topics on TT. :dance: :dance:
Wendy
ToadBriarWendy, it's actually an eft - a juvenile newt. As a young fella he lives in the forest and is orange, but when he grows
up, he will turn green (with orange spots!) and he'll go to live in the water fulltime. Aren't they cute little wrinkly pudgems?
Poor lil guys will walk right off the edge of your hand if you hold them, though, no sense at all! They're amphibians like
toads & frogs & salamanders. I am delighted to have them living around here in such great numbers, as they're awfully
fragile and so are an indicator of a healthy ecosystem.
By far some of the nicest neighbors we've ever had!
Little Bear GuyI had to google what an Echidna was 
, I thought it was a hedgehog when I first saw it. They are kinda scary looking at first but now I think they are kinda cute. I found this information on one web page which I thought was very interesting.
"Together with the platypus, echidnas are the world's only monotremes, or egg-laying mammals. There are two species of echidnas, one confined to the highlands of New Guinea, and one which lives in Australia and New Guinea."
I had never heard of a monotreme either (wow maybe I need to get my head out of the bag of stuffing sometime and maybe I would learn something )
Thanks so much for posting the pic, it's so great to see these other creatures from other parts of the world it's so informative. Hmmm maybe I'll have to attempt making one of these monotreme's :crackup: .
big hugs
Shane
Real Deal BearsWow, I have really enjoyed all these wildlife pics.
SHANE echidna's are not scarry at all, they are so sweet and shy.
Shelli, no matter what you think I LOVE rackoons
& I just adore those squirells 
Posts: 3,540This has been a great walk around everyone's garden :photo: Like a worldwide garden tour!!! I just love getting to see all the ickle critters.
Oooh, we learned the other day that you don't say "Dik, dik, dik to a North American squirrel" Hubby and I were driving up our driveway, and I had my window rolled down for the mail. Whatever possesssed Eldon, but he saw the squirrel hotfooting it for the tree and called out 'dik, dik, dik (like with a long eeee sound). OMG airbrakes!!!! The squirrel threw a dirty look at the truck, and for a split second I thought we were going to have an attack squirrel in the truck! 
Thank goodness he decided to go his merry way instead. 
Newcastle, Ontario
Maria,
We had pine martens when we lived further north in a small town called Deep River. They were wonderful to watch jumping from tree to tree. The first time we saw one, we had to get out the binoculars to get a good look, and then look it up in the encylopedia LOL! They are very nasty, though, and we think we lost a cat to one.
In our last town, we had fishers, which are very vicious and quite large. We were grateful that owners on all sides of us had dogs, so they didn't come up from the river. We don't have fishers in our new town, just coyotes and TONS of rabbits. The pine marten is on the top - the fisher is on the bottom and is the size of a medium size dog.
We were thrilled on the weekend, to see that a pair of cardinals are building a nest in one of our cedar trees. We should be able to see the activity with our binoculars and I hope to get some pictures. There are tons of cats in the neighbourhood, so we will have to be vigilant on keeping them out of the yard, maybe with a sensor sprinkler.
We also have a zillion red, black and gray squirrels, which surprises me. I thought they weren't compatible and wouldn't live side by side, but they love the millions of pine cones in our yard! One actually came up the step and chattered at our cat! If I had opened the door, he'd have been a goner for sure LOL! I saw a hawk go after a squirrel across the street, so I guess they have to watch their back too :crackup:
hugs,
Brenda
puca bearsBrenda
thanks for posting the pics - it completely went out of my head yesterday (poorly cat to worry about)
We lived in France a few years back - a glorious place, just across the border from Geneva, and on the lower slopes of the Jura...anyway - we had pine martens living in our roof.....noisy little devils at times,
but we never had any problems with them.....and we always had cats (and dogs, and a horde of hedgehogs who visited every night for cat and dog-food leftovers!). From what I heard, both in France and here, the biggest problems with pine martens is that they like chewing the wiring in cars (and don't ask me why!). The German equivalent of the Automobile Association actually published a list in order of preference of which cars are most nibbled!!!!
As for the fisher - now that is a complete new one for me.....my turn to go Googling!
Seems like a whole lot of us just LOVe to see other peoples "wild life" - keep it coming!
big huggies
Maria
Newcastle, OntarioHi Maria,
I hope your poor kitty is feeling better!!! Pine Martens and Fishers are both 'martens' apparently and they are both part of the weasel family. Martens grow up to 25 inches in length, but Fishers can be up to 48 inches in length, especially the males, which are much larger. We came across two of them in the middle of the road last spring, in a bird sanctuary and were surprised at how big they were. It must have been mating season, as they are usually solitary creatures.
Despite being found along the waterways, they don't eat fish - their favourite foods are squirrels and porcupines. As we encroach more and more on their territories, they are adapting quickly and are quite happy to eat cats and small dogs, almost eradicating all outdoor cats from a village outside the Ottawa area a few winters ago - easy pickings, I guess. On one occasion in Ottawa, a male fisher actually went after a horse, and then attacked the owner, when she tried to scare it off with a bat! They are absolutely fearless, which is why they are so scarey.
I'm really glad to be out of their range. There might be a few in this area, but they were really getting to be a problem in our old town.
I thought Pine Martens had faces like a fox - they are really cute from a distance I can't imagine having them in your roof! I'd take bats anyday!
I'm afraid I'm with Shelli when it comes to raccoons! We had a pair that we dubbed Martha and Henry, that lived in a tunnel on our street. If you had chicken for dinner and their were bones in the garbage, you were guaranteed a visit from them. One evening, Henry got stuck in our gargage pail, and my husband hit him on the rump lightly with a flat broom. He crawled backwards to the end of the yard, until he finally was able to get out. Hubby picked up the pail to put it back on the patio and Henry beat him to the patio and was waiting for him. They are the cheekiest devils on earth.
Porcupines are really slow and harmless, if you leave them alone, but if you've ever heard one scream during mating season, you'd show the Fishers where they lived :crackup: It is the most bloodcurdling scream I've ever heard!
It is interesting to learn about all the different animals we encounter daily, worldwide. I want to know more!
hugs,
Brenda
wow Brenda, I've never heard of martens or fishers before. Wow, I know how destructive stoats and ferrets can be so a bigger more tenacious version must be absolutely destructive.
tee hee your porcupine story reminds me of the penguins here - we have tiny Little Blue penguins in the bays where I live. They are really small but a friend of mine had breeding ones under the floorboards of her house - and ended up moving out of her house because of them. She said the screams would wake her up in the middle of the night - she said it was like the most raucous baby amplified 10 times.
puca bearsYikes - I've just been reading all about fishers, and I don't think I'd actually want to meet one! We really don't have anything dangerous here - O.K. - adders (poisonous snakes) but they are pretty shy - just as well - we have had the cats bring snakes in (!) occasionally, but they have been harmless ones. BUT - big excitement a couple of months back - the european Lynx is moving back into the area...and after last year's furore over poor Bruno (Germany's first brown bear in YEARS, and a very sad tale) the papers went to great lengths to point out that the lynx are NO threat ...apparently you would be extremely lucky to ever see one.
And Melisa - I LOVE the idea of little penguins roaming round - tho' I guess you wouldn't want them nesting under the floorboards!
The pine martens we had in the roof were quite amusing - we finally figured out that they only spent the winter there - explained why they were really noisy just twice a year - Spring, when they were packing up to move out, and late Autumn when they returned, unpacked, and made themselves at home....making beds, hanging up pictures, fighting over the best spots - well - that's what they sounded like!
And the cat? - back to the vet tomorrow......ho hum.....
bed time....
huggies
Maria
