Wow, who knew? I’d never seen a seal in the wild anywhere so I was excited to see this one. I did see some sea lions in SF years ago but I know they aren’t considered true seals.
Today was something I saw in semi-nature. A Little Owl, which as you might imagine, was pretty dinky. This little guy would have fit in my hand.
We visited a falconry and got to meet and fly some of their owls, falcons, eagles and hawks.
So we are having work done on our basement and thus the garage door must be left open for the crew to come in and out. We normally keep our trash in a can in the garage before trash day. Because we have seen many bears around our house we decided I should take our trash to the dump rather than leaving it in the open garage. The work crew is parked in our driveway so parked my hatchback on the dirt road behind our home and rolled our green can to the car.
I had the hatch opened and about half of the trash loaded in my car when a young bear walked out of the bushes only about 4 feet from where I was standing. Never heard it coming. I could have reached out and pet it if I did not value my arm. Trunk open, half full of smelly trash. Can open half full of smelly trash.
I raised my arms over my head and yelled “Go away!” as loud as I could. It did not seem inclined to go away. I was at the side of the car so unable to close my garbage-filled open hatchback which was facing the bear. I yelled again and waved my arms. After contemplating the situation for a few more moments the bear slowly sauntered off down the road.
My heart is still racing. I have seen bears and even posted at the SDMB about other encounters. But I have never been this close to a black bear.
We live in Black Mountain, NC. We are a “bearwise” community and I love all the nature around me but I would appreciate going forward that the bears keeping their distance.
Got back from Alaska this past week. While there saw:
Kodiak grizzly bear mom and two cubs
Moose cow and her calf
Family of wild swans
Too many sea otters to count
Lots of halibut, rock fish, and salmon
3 different bald eagles
Puffins
Ravens
and a shit-load of sea gulls
Our hummingbird feeder hangs in the same spot each year. This summer there are more hummingbirds than previous years, to the point where we had to hang a second feeder to keep up.
Maybe climate related? I’m also seeing way more fawns this summer and more litters of two and three.
Out mowing the yard last night, I was moving some carpet rolls we’ve got stacked up on the curb so I could trim around them, and a little skink lizard scampered off. Then later in the back yard I saw a toad in the grass, so I chased it over to the patio so I didn’t run over it with the mower. And as I was doing that a little baby snake slithered off through the grass.
We set up a trail cam on our trail behind the house about a week ago in the spot in the woods that I throw the watermelon and cantaloupe rinds and guts so they don’t stink up the garbage. The first visitor was a coyote. The next evening there was a raccoon. The next evening was a party! First the coyote came, then 15 minutes later 5 raccoons waddled in. They left and the coyote came back. He left and a skunk moseyed on in. It was kind of funny how they all took turns.
We have two feeders hanging due to increased demand this year. The feeders are close enough to each other that individual hummingbirds are trying to protect both feeders.
I saw a cormorant on our beach on Lake Michigan. They’re not strangers here, but they are common.
It took me a few minutes to recall the name of the bird. I couldn’t remember if it was cormorant or termagant. But eventually I remembered a termagant was a harsh or unpleasant woman, so I decided it was a cormorant.
Cormorants are cool birds. They have less oil production to preen with, so after a feeding dive they need to stand in the sun with their wings spread to dry off, unlike ducks that dive and never “get wet”.
I didn’t put any hummingbird feeders out this year because I was sick of the aerial combat. I planted a bunch of Mexican sunflowers, and a cardinal flower I planted last year bloomed this year. They visit these flowers but they don’t fight, for the most part. I plan to keep doing this going forward. It has the added bonus of less work cleaning and filling feeders too.
We have frogs in our pond. When we take the dogs to the pond as they explore frogs jump from the edge into the water. Each time they think they’ll catch the next one. They never do.