One of them got in my garage and couldn’t find his way out. I opened both doors and left them open overnite. I know they need to eat ALL DAMN DAY!
He lived and I saw him today, or he has friends.
We have an outbuilding (dubbed The Shack) that is used for storage. It has an attic accessible by a ladder. My husband checked the attic one day to see if there was any rodent damage and did not replace the hatch door when he was through. The other day he was in the shack and yelled to me for help. A hummingbird flew inside and couldn’t find its way out. My husband had the door propped open but the bird would almost go out and then change directions. There’s an old pool skimmer net out there so I tried to use that to push/guide the bird out of the door. But it was flying so fast and so erratically that it was impossible. THEN he flew up into the attic. UGH I put on a pair of gardening gloves and went up the ladder. The poor thing was whizzing around like crazy. Finally he stopped to rest on a beam. I still can’t believe it but I was able to gently pick him up! Then I had the problem of going down a ladder using only one hand and trying not to squish the hummingbird with the other. But I did it! I didn’t want him flying right back in so I carried him around the back of the shack and let him go. Success!
That’s a fantastic rescue, @TRC4941. Congratulations and thank you from us all.
Hear, hear!
Tonight I saw a group of four egrets bank low over a field near the restaurant I was in, and then land, one after the other. About half an hour later, they took off and flew by again.
When we pulled up to our gate this afternoon, there was a spotty little fawn right in front of it, dancing around kind of anxiously. When he stepped away and I was able to open the gate, I saw why…his whole fam-damly was on the other side! They didn’t seem too concerned about us as we drove into the yard. A few minutes later we let the dogs out, and the barking convinced them all to vacate the premises. We watched them reunite with the baby and all run away to the woods.
Looking at the photo competition thread, I see @Si_Amigo has had a similar experience.
Three otters (a mama and two babies) were plying outside the catio just now. They climbed up on the steps, and we had three furry otter faces looking at us.
Dang, Johnny_L.A, I’d love to see that. I’m an otter fan.
I saw a procession of juvenile raccoons walking along our back fence the other morning. It was so dark I could only see their shadowy silhouettes, but they were raccoons all right. As soon as they saw me, they quickly dropped over the other side of the fence, into our neighbor’s yard.
Ask, and ye shall receive.
OMG. OMG. That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
How close to water do you live?
It’s a tenth of a mile to the beach. There’s a seasonal creek in the back yard.
I kind of got a picture of the otters a month or so ago. This is the first time I got good images. I heard them early enough to go inside and get my phone.
With bonus scat marking, how often do you see that 
. Awesome to see them wandering through your own backyard.
Like most normal people I am fond of otters - they were my mother’s favorite animal and since she died I’ve been feeling nostalgic about that lately when I run across them. But I do admit to finding it amusing that a certain portion of the local birding community are very much not otter fans. Otters happily take waterfowl of all kinds and I’ve seen a certain degree of disgruntled muttering about that whenever it pops up on birding sites ([outrage]there was an otter feasting on a migratory snow goose at such-and-such estuary yesterday![/outrage]).
Just nature, red in tooth and claw.
That would be so fun to see otters in your back yard like that! LOL at the “dump and run”. 
I didn’t know this thread existed…fun to read all the nature sightings.
I have one that happened a few nights ago on my evening dog walk. I started hearing a loud commotion up ahead…sounded like squealing and grunting pigs, but we don’t have those running amok around here (urban neighborhood). It startled me as I had no idea what was going on, but I then saw dark shapes running full speed down the sidewalk towards us, and realized they were raccoons.
There were about 5-6 of them, and not wanting to get in the middle of that ruckus, we quickly went up a neighbor’s steps to get out of the way. The one in the back was very large (I assume male)…chasing them all out of his territory, I presume. I had no idea raccoons made noises like that though.
I hope he put it in a tree? Bats can’t fly from the ground apparently - I don’t think most know that…I didn’t until just recently.
I don’t see them that often around here, but we saw a few of them flying around a tall pine tree just the other night. Was fun to watch them.
My gf noticed a green heron by our pond earlier this summer and thought it might be nesting nearby. Lately we’ve seen two fledgling green herons in the high grass at one end of the pond. No pictures yet. They’re too quick.
I haven’t followed this thread, or read all 2,600 previous posts, so I don’t know how much in keeping with thread’s tone my post is. I suspect most posts are about the beauty of nature. This one is not, exactly, but what I saw was, undoubtedly, natural.
We were having a family pizza party on the back deck last night, and noticed a unpleasant smell. We looked around and soon found a dead rabbit less than 20 feet from the deck. (Our property, on the North Shore of Boston, is practically overrun by bunnies. My wife hates them.)
[Spoilered for those with delicate sensibilities.]
I got a spade to remove the corpse, and was fascinated/horrified to note that, except for the fur, the remains were essentially liquified and writhing with maggots. I dug a little under the body to get most of the maggots, carried the load to a far edge of the property, and then returned to the site and turned over the earth where the body had laid.
That took care of the smell and we enjoyed our pizza for the rest of the evening.
Yep. Last year there was a dead rabbit next door, next to our driveway, that was the same.
I think it counts. Nature is beautiful, but also red in tooth and claw, and frequently disgusting.
Out for a walk yesterday, trying to take a picture for the SDMB monthly competition, I found this banana spider (without walking through the web, praise Jebus).
Lost on this Brit. They’re real bad I assume?
j
ETA going to a reserve in Normandy tomorrow. Will report back.
It was the Reserve Ornithologique Du Gros Banc, which is nice estuary terrain, well set up and equipped- but we saw nothing much of interest. But here’s an odd story.
One of the attractions of the reserve is that they have seals. No, we didn’t see any. On the way back we stopped off at the sizeable seaside resort of Cabourg. As we walked out of the car park and into the main drag we encountered a public information matrix sign advising us that there were seals on the beach but that’s normal, the seals are fine, just don’t go near them. Eh?? I more or less ran to the beach.
Of course there were no seals. They were back on the reserve, I don’t doubt. Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
j