What kind of local wildlife do you have?

We were traveling home from a trip the other night. I was driving, and played my favorite game of "count the wildlife". It helps me stay more aware of all the animals I need to dodge, LOL. I start my count when I'm about 75 miles from home, when I turn on to the super-quiet country roads. I counted 87 mule deer, 3 fox, and 5 rabbits. And those were only the ones I saw clearly on the edge of the road. There were a ton more unidentified blurs on the edge of my headlights, but I never count those.

And I almost hit an entire herd of javalina (also known as collard peccaries)! There were about a dozen animals clustered in the middle of the road. I had to hit the brakes and come to a dead stop. The javalina, of course, didn't bother to hurry across. They're arrogant little suckers that make way for no vehicle. I had to sit and wait while they leisurely meandered their way to the other side of the road.

My personal high count for deer on that stretch is 112, and my low is somewhere in the 40s. I also usually see at least one or more elk. When the warmer weather hits, I will see a ton of armadillo, porcupine, skunk, turkey, turkey vultures, hawks and ravens. I think the rarest animal I've seen has been an albino crow, but I've also seen a peregrine falcon. My personal goal is to see one of the mountain lions or bears that live around here, but alas, no luck so far.

What kind of wildlife do you see where you live? Are they as numerous as they are out here, or is a sighting fairly rare?

We have wild parrots that like to make a ruckass around 6am and 6pm. They gather early in the morning, leave during the day and gather in the evening. They're pretty to watch

Armadillo and Opossum... aka the most annoy creatures on the planet You see them pretty much daily here. Can I just say how much I HATE Armadillos?! They have dug so many holes in our yard and make me trip daily - UGH.

Whitetail Deer are always out, especially on I-10 but thankfully they are so used to the sounds of cars they don't even lift their heads up. Everywhere else they will try to kill you, lol. Bobcats and Wild Hogs are seen pretty regularly too.

I've seen many many foxes and coyote and mule and white tail deer. I've seen one mountain lion, and I can't really be sure I saw him. We we're driving on the blue ridge, and I just happened to look over in time to see its rear end disappear into the woods.

Raccoons, possums, fox, gulls, pigeons, assorted and sundry song birds. There are coyotes, but I've not seen one, and certainly deer, but they stay a bit further out, generally. Twice we've had cougars in the area, but they were probably escapees and wildlife rounded them up pretty fast.

On our property we have had foxes, deer, bear, short tailed stoats, raccoon, skunks, porcupines . Around we have loads of coyotes, some wolves, flying squirrels, regular squirrels, chipmunks, badger.. not sure what else.. I am sure I am forgetting some..

Ducks, coyotes, red foxes, squirrels, red squirrels, grey wolves, porcupines, skunks, raccoons...

I think that's pretty well it for around here... That's all within a 15 minute drive

Squirrels! Lots and lots of squirrels! So common I forgot them, though there are fewer at the new house.

And crows. Lots of those too.

Oh beavers, and rabbits... so many rabbits. All sorts of birds... hawks, vultures, song birds, finches, owls, falcons..

^^ This plus wolves, cougars, Bears, foxes, coyotes, deer, elk, moose.

We have much of what has already been mentioned.

White tail deer, opposum, squirrels... so many squirrels and FAT ones at that. foxes, rabbits, lots of birds... GEESE especially. can't think of what else.

The deer are quite plentiful. Especially in this one area that's owned by a golf course and they are protected there. BIG herd and they don't give a flying fig about you or your vehicle lol. they know you'll stop and they take their sweet time. But there is also lots of opportunity to just pull over and watch them for a while since they aren't skittish.

We have a rabbit that has decided to make a home under our deck. Lucky us... the dogs are tortured by this rabbit.

Racoons, skunks (much to Jake's chagrin), assorted song-birds, hawks of various sorts, osprey, white-tailed deer and coyotes. I'm sure I'm missing some, but those are the common sorts.

We have LOADS of wildlife in this area.
There is the run of the mill - rabbits, squirrels, black tail deer, possom, seals, sealions, raccoons, bald eagles, golden eagles, and finches of all colors. These western tanagers are my favorite - they're about the size of a big finch/sparrow.


There are the don't see those every day but maybe a few times a year- otters, beaver, martins, roosevelt elk, weasels, coyotes, skunks, orca, grey whales. Salmon we have swim by the island a good deal of the year but you can really see them jumping in late summer.

Then there are the pretty rare to be seen wildlife. Cougars, bobcat, black bear, mountain goats, etc. I've only seen them a few times in my life.

Oh, I forgot to list those! We have those, too, along with badgers and raccoons. There are a lot of coyotes here, but you almost never see them. I've seen them only once or twice. They're usually too clever to allow themselves to be seen. I also forgot the creepy crawlies. There are a ton of reptiles around here. Rattlesnakes, copperheads, red racer snakes, king snakes, and numerous lizards.

I'd love to see a flock of wild parrots! I bet they're gorgeous.

Whitetail deer are everywhere here, but I don't usually worry about counting them... I'm more concerned with making sure they don't randomly decide to bolt into my car... Foxes, coyotes, groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels, all kinds of birds, owls swoop around if you're out late enough, when we were kids we would do that thing where you throw a rock up in the air and you can see bats come diving at it because they think it's a bug. Red-tailed hawks are really common even in the city, pheasant waddle along the side of the road in the country sometimes and really freak me out because my uncle accidentally drove over one once, it got stuck up in the wheel well and almost killed him... turkey vulture you usually see flying around, not usually down on the ground, opossum, raccoon, I don't usually see skunk though I smell them often enough. When you get down a bit closer to Southern Illinois you also see gray wolves and armadillos, though admittedly they are usually roadkill. =/

Oh, I still remember one day I was driving out to Auggie's breeder's house and a turkey vulture came swooping down right in front of my car. I thought I was going to hit it. Completely freaked me out, I'm pretty sure I was yelling "NOOOOOO!!" Those things are not exactly small, and coming right at you is really intimidating, LOL.

You can sometimes see bald eagles, it's getting more common to just kind of see them hanging out random places. It's still a really big deal though. There are rivers where they love to congregate during the winter because those rivers don't freeze and they can still hunt, but I'm not near any of those. I haven't seen one out since I was a kid though. =<

Uh. Squirrels. Basically. :lol-sign:

And various birds. And foxes. Used to have a huge rabbit population but I don't really see them much anymore, and wonder if it has anything to do with foxes being more popular now.

There must be opposums too, because Juno battled one in the backyard once. But that's the only time I've ever seen one.

We used to have an oddly large turkey population a couple blocks from my house, but they have since put buildings in that area and now the turkeys are gone... which is kind of sad even though they were a little frightening.

Well, I am living in the city right now, so we have.... Pigeons? Being a country kid my entire life up until last fall I had never seen a 'real city pigeon', or heard one...the first time I heard one coo I thought someone was strangling a cat:yikes: I always kind of imagined they would sound more like doves We also have squirrels that are the size of house cats. I hate the city.

Mainly dead badgers

I keep thinking of more lol. We have turkeys. They were reintroduced and have been doing really really well. Its not uncommon to see flocks of 20 or more.

At home in Canada we have coyotes, deer, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, beavers, opossums and loads of rabbits. And I'm from the city (Toronto).

Here in the UK .. squirrels and foxes. And hedgehogs when it gets warmer.