Wildlife

I live in a semi-rural neighborhood. My backyard is the border of a forest and wildlife management area. Signs on the road warn of deer and bears. We get a lot of wildlife in the development. Deer, turkeys, otters, bobcats, etc. Although there are bear warnings I’ve not seen one in the development. Large groups of turkeys. Counted 30 in one group. They are pretty assertive birds and have grown accustomed to people.

Got a funny text from the wife just now. “Can you come out and chase the turkeys away so I can pull in the driveway”. Large group turkeys in the yard and a couple were just standing there facing off with the car about five feet away.


I laughed and said I wonder how often husbands get messages like that from their wife.

I wish I had gotten pictures of it.

That is funny. I live in a fairly developed area but when they built it they left a lot of old trees standing so I see plenty of deer and the occasional fox or turkey. In fact. a fox used to make a den under the building in the back yard, and deer would wander in to eat the crab apples, before I bought the place and built a fence around the yard. The deer still wander by beyond the fence and they seem to understand that the crazy barking beagle can't get to them so they are quite calm as they eat only ten feet away from the fence.

Old, I live in the same type of area that you do. It's called, The Sanctuary. Wooded area in back of my house. I've had all sorts of critters including a young Black Bear. I've found numerous things in my pool, both dead and alive. Once I had a snake called a Dwarf Rattler in there! Alive.
Deer are common, and I love seeing them. Big Cranes walk the streets in gangs like they own the place. I'll have to take a picture of that and post it. I also have pain in the ass Armadillos tearing up my lawn. I have a metal fence but they get under it.
The wooded area is a government protected piece of land so it will never be built on.

I live just off of a main roadway in Virginia (Rt. 1) and on the property here over the last few years I have seen deer, foxes, turkeys, turkey vultures, snakes, turtles, frogs, groundhogs, raccoons, opossum chipmunks, bats and of course squirrels and various birds. There is supposed to be a new litter of foxes nearby but I have only seen an adult running around this week. The property is wooded and has a larger creek running on the side, I need to set up a wildlife camera one day. The first time I saw the turkeys I was in the house and heard this crazy noise and when I stepped outside there were 4 big turkeys in the yard who took off way faster then I thought they could into the woods, I obviously had never heard a turkey before but they were loud!

You want to hear loud birds —— peacocks ! They have gotten away from people who tried to keep them in their yards and are breeding in the wild. Pretty to see, but annoyingly loud.

Can I come get a turkey for Thanksgiving? I bet they are better than any you get in the store. They eat natural food, run free and not confined to cages and buildings.

I'm not a fan of store-bought turkey, but a wild turkey breast deep fried is wonderful. Totally different flavor and texture to the meat because wild turkeys fly and exercise their muscles where domestic turkey don't.

Here is a picture of the turkeys coming down our street.

Had a video I posted here years ago about the Turkeys that would chase me and son walking to school on youtube.
Jay Leno even used a potion of it his Thanksgiving show. YouTube finally pulled it when comments got out of control.

We’ve got herds of water buffaloes roaming the fields and the village streets.
Up until the early 60s these beasts would work the paddy fields, agriculture was then entirely dropped, farmers took jobs in factories and the water buffaloes returned to the wild.
Generally tamed, they must nonetheless be avoided during mating season. The bulls get real cranky.

Cheers,
Slug

Good grief, here in my part of England the main danger from wildlife would be inadvertently tripping over a hedgehog! And mayhap be fine £1000 for disturbing the Great Crested Newts that reside in our pond.
Deer are more prevalent and quite bold since the Lockdown started, but these are later generations of domesticated escapees from deer parks and farms.
Our rescue ex-racer Greyhound and Lurcher like to show them who is fastest but show no inclination to prey upon them.

Yup those pesky hedgehogs. I think the wildest thing I've seen around here is the odd fox looking to mooch around Tesco (every little helps) and last year when I was touring some local derelict graveyards I saw a muntjac deer which surprised the heck out of me. I didn't know we had them in the area.

We have a wolf in our area, she has pups too.

Last year we had a different one but it got killed after she had a litter, not sure if it was a farmer or a hunter that put down the poison for her. The Forest Rangers (Bos Wachter) have an idea who it was but they have no evidence. The most dangerous animal we have around here are the wild boars, they do attack and have injured quite a few people, there was a hunt that killed over 100 boars 2 years ago and our local mayor got pilloried for it by animal activists.

Foxes we have in plenty, they take hens and they are a bit of a problem, my father in law has lost a few and now he has stopped keeping them, another guy in our town had his whole hen house wiped out in one night, 12 dead and 2 missing.

As an Archery Club we were given permission to use part of the military territory to set up a 3D shooting range but it got cancelled due to the danger from the wild boars

My cat takes rabbits and brings them home sometimes live sometimes dead, she does seem to be a good hunter.

Rossi was sitting on the window sill beside me and looking out the window and getting all agitated half meowing half growling.
I let her out the front door and she sneaked along the fence between us and the neighbours then jumped over the low part of the fence into the neighbours driveway.
I seen a brown flash run round the end of the dividing fence and across my drive and over my front lawn it was followed by a ginger blur and into the trees at the other side of my front garden followed by a lot of loud animal noises and screaming, then Rossi trots back across the lawn and up the driveway with the rabbit in her mouth. I buried the remains later.

Rabbits are good eating.

Konijn met pruimen, zeer lekker!

Rabbit stew with prunes is one of the Belgian national dishes

We have had several coyote attacks in a residential area just south of me last week. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/coyote-attacks-on-humans-worry-south-end-residents

Don't mess with wild turkeys, especially a Tom, if you don't want to get messed up.

There was a video on the news last night of a wolf near Antwerp that had killed a couple of sheep and then later attacking a pair of horses, one of the horses introduced it's metal shod hooves to the wolf and you could see them connect, the wolf took off into the nearby woods.

The tracks were examined to show that it was a wolf and not a large dog, it did look a bit like a Mechelaar herder (Malinois) though.

I've lived in Florida almost my entire life and I haven't seen an alligator in the wild since I was a teenager. Not much wildlife at all where I live unless you count the human variety.

Oh my ! Panzer. Come to my place and we can sit by my pool and see gators in the pond behind my house.

We are about four houses from the edge of the suburbs and the bush and rural type area. A lot of decent sized blocks around us. Bush turkeys are common and we get a lot of wallabies bouncing around. Plenty of tree snakes and the odd bad boy once a year or so like a brown.

my Mom lives in a retirement trailer park and they had a problem with turkeys going after people especially when they'd walk their dogs like my Mom did. It's crazy to see the bears out taking down people bird feeders, we're told up here in NH to take them down in the spring just for that reason, but people don't listen, plus with all the construction, bears are going into towns now looking for food.

I found this bear 2 days ago up in Northern NH on the side of the road looking for plants to eat.

I'll add this to the thread, nice sized Carpet python sunning itself in the back yard a few mornings ago.

After attacking another couple of people, the coyote was shot and killed.