Mammals: The mundane stuff, squirrels, rats (The other day as I was leaving the office I saw a rat scurrying across the front lawn of the office building). I don’t necessarily see them, but raccoons are definitely around, and I might occasionally see them if I’m out at night. Same with skunks, maybe a month ago I happened to look outside in the evening and happened to see a skunk casually walking across my patio. And you’ll definitely smell the evidence of them from time to time. Out in the parks I’ll see the occasional coyote.
On the other hand, while state parks have signs warning about mountain lions, and I’m sure they’re around, I’ve literally never seen one.
Birds: Common finches, jays, sparrows, yellow-billed magpies (Which I’m pretty sure are unique to California and are a different species from the magpies you get in the rest of the country). During the winter I see a lot of dark-eyed juncos and nuthatches, I assume they must migrate here this time of year. But my favorite are Nuttall’s woodpeckers, which I sometimes see pecking at the big trees in my yard. And out in more wooded areas I often see acorn woodpeckers. And of course by the lake there are Canada geese and egrets. Oh, and wild turkeys are pretty common. And the occasional California quail.
Other critters: Tree frogs during the summer, though they’re more often heard than seen.
Routine sightings are mostly birds, the mammals, amphibians, and reptiles tend to be skittish. Great tailed grackles, gulls of various sorts (laughing and ring-billed are the most common), pigeons, monk parakeets, mourning doves, long billed curlews, great blue herons, white tailed deer, feral cats, brown anoles, mosquitoes (do they count?).
Less often are various other birds including northern cardinals, green jays, sandhill cranes, and whooping cranes. About a month ago I saw a gathering of them, probably about half or so of the entire population based on my estimate of the size of the group. That was an amazing sight.
An inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, OH. For animals that I see what I would call routinely, it’s pigeons, assorted Little Brown Birds (I don’t know precisely what species, or even how many species), and a couple of species of squirrels (red, black, and gray, but I think the black and gray are the same species).
Common enough that they’re not particularly surprising are redtailed hawks, American robins, turkey vultures, rabbits, whitetailed deer, and skunks.
Seen-occasionally are possums, raccoons, coyotes, red foxes, chipmunks, mice, turkeys, cranes, orioles, peregrine falcons, and bald eagles, plus a few other small birds that I can’t identify.
I don’t think that actually reflects their actual abundances; I suspect that the ones I see less often are just better at not being seen.
I assume we’re not counting invertebrates. Too many of some species of them.
California’s Central Valley here. We have yet to see a beaver, but in the last few weeks we’re pretty sure we’ve identified a beaver dam and lodge in a slough about a quarter mile from our house. We have possums trundling through our yard every night. Skunks sometimes sleep under our deck. Raccoons raid our vegetable garden, and are probably also digging in the compost for grubs. Wild turkeys every now and then, and we used to have a small flock of peafowl, but we haven’t seen (or heard) them in a couple of years. We really want to see the beavers, though.
Occasional fox. Common frogs and toads. Fireflies, though they probably come under the miscellaneous insects.
I expect I’m still leaving somebody out. And I didn’t count the semi feral cats; they’re probably not entirely wild, they’re probably out of one of my neighbors’ barns, though it’s hard to tell for sure.
I used to see tons of raccoons wandering around at night until Toronto moved to using a raccoon-proof bin for organic waste. Now I mostly see them dead on the road.
Tucson:
Coyotes, bobcats, javelinas, bunnies and some little rodent that runs across the driveway at work..When I worked night audit we’d get kangaroo rats in the lobby every 6 months or so. They might still get in there. i dunno.
Harris hawks, Gambel’s Quail, hummingbirds, vultures, white-winged doves and some other bird of prey that is not a harris hawk. Also phainopepla. I’m sure I mangled the spelling.
California king snakes - I moved a young one the other month to get it in the sun -I’m Mediterranean geckos (invasive) and gila monsters. At a different hotel zebra tailed lizards were everywhere. Some species of sceloporus is common, too.
And tarantulas during monsoon. They’re oddly personable.
Hawks and owls almost everyday
Moles tunnel their way from the thicket behind us
Deer, a cluster of them in the woods about 1/4 mile away that sometimes walk down our street
Coyotes come out late at night
Found a possum in my garage once, no idea where that came from.
Maryland, about a mile outside DC. Two kinds of crows (American and Fish), hawks, bluejays, sparrows, wrens, Cardinals, herons, robins, buzzards, pigeons, and doves. Seagulls sometimes show up in the parking lot of a local supermarket. I don’t see the reptiles and amphibians, but know they’re there. I see squirrels and rabbits all the time, and foxes fairly often It’s not uncommon to see deer walking down the street like they own the neighborhood. Usually when I see possums and raccoons it’s after they’ve been run over.
Birds My wife and I enjoy birdwatching so I could make a pretty exhaustive list here, but I’ll stick to the ones that thrill me. We have a bonded pair of bald eagles living in a nest on an island in the lake by my house. I see at least one of them just about every time I go sailing and it’s exhilarating. There’s also a pair of Broadwing Hawks somewhere in the area. I snapped a photo of one in my backyard last year and reported it to Fish Game & Wildlife because they’re threatened. We also have flocks of wild turkeys pretty regularly from spring to fall.
Mammals During the active season we get visited by black bears about once a week. The hunt/anti-hunt debate is a pretty sensitive topic around here. Periodically we get coyotes, and I’ve also encountered bobcats out in the woods. There is an ongoing debate about whether there are any mountain lions in NJ, and having seen one get hit by a car and then get up and run into the woods I am firmly on the Yes side of that debate.
Reptiles Surprisingly, where I live is a hotbed for Timber Rattlesnakes. I’ve only seen one once, and even then it wasn’t until I was closer than I was comfortable with. My daughter is a biology major at UMaine and worked on a project tracking Wood Turtles, which inspired me to go looking for them down here. With the tips she gave me, they were easy to find. We are also overrun with black racers. I’ve seen a few of them hunting bird’s nests, and more than once I have come home from vacation to find one taking up residence in my couch.
When I was in high school, my friends and I went to the beach one morning and got there very early, before the crowds. It was a calm day, so there weren’t any surfers. The beach was totally dead. And there was a big pod of dolphins literally 15 or 20 feet from shore.
Dolphins don’t mind crowds. They will actually move closer to shore to check out a crowded line-up of surfers. Maybe the ones you saw so close to the shore were there to check you out.
I could have added dolphins to my routinely-seen list if I still lived in Southern California. They are much more scarce on the Central Coast.
They were there before us and we were the first humans on the beach that day but maybe they were waiting for us.
Being a group of teenage boys, we did try to get in the water to see if they’d come up to us, but the water was freezing cold and the sun hadn’t broken the fog yet, so we got about waist deep before we turned around, and by the time it warmed up the dolphins moved on.
