What animals do you see in your local area?

Odradek · 2016-01-13 01:27:15

Non-domesticated animals only.

I see birds, and squirrels fairly regularly, and chipmunks, raccoons, rabbits and deer much more rarely. Every now and then I see a bat.

Imipolex G · 2016-01-13 01:28:01

wild turkeys

humans

Steelers fans

Fossilmaiden · 2016-01-13 01:30:25

Squirrels, birds (swans, crows, ducks, and pigeons, mostly), the occasional rabbit and mouse, rats, sometimes foxes, and really rarely, badgers. You can find deer around here, but you'd have to head into the woods.

Odradek · 2016-01-13 01:31:55

A fun fact about an area I have spent a decent amount of time in: Arizona literally has herds of feral pigs roaming around.

Princess Alice · 2016-01-13 01:32:06

Our subdivision is surrounded by birds so often deer will just take shortcuts through the neighborhood.

It's quite amusing when they stop in somebody's yard and their dog starts barking and then every dog on the block starts barking in reply.

Also raccoons are cute but they have an annoying habit of ripping open all the bags in the garbage can.

Fossilmaiden · 2016-01-13 01:34:00

Oh right, you get boar in the forest too, but you don't particularly want to see those. Sometimes when it's wet we get frogs?

Salix Babylonika · 2016-01-13 01:36:58

birds, squirrels, the odd bear or deer who's wandered off the beaten path.

LOAD Cherry · 2016-01-13 01:42:44

raccoons, deer, squirrels, and the odd coyote or opossum

One-Winged Eagle · 2016-01-13 02:10:52

Birds.

If I go to this park, I can see monkeys.

Klinotaxis · 2016-01-13 02:12:59

birds

Vriska · 2016-01-13 02:17:29

A variety of birds where I am, though I've seen a couple rabbits too.

My dad (who lives like.... 14 miles from me in a secluded area AKA the middle of nowhere) sees all sorts of birds (including wild turkeys), deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, possums and the occasional raccoon, groundhog, fox, or bear. And he'll hear a coyote now and then.

There are skunks around too but I haven't seen them alive, only smelled them after they became roadkill. :P

LOAD Cherry · 2016-01-13 02:19:44

In terms of specific birds, geese, seagulls, sparrows..

Cardinals in winter and spring, swallows during the summer. I also believe we have goldfinches? I heard a nighthawk near my house once.

Also, one time there was an owl near my old high school and EVERY CROW IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS TRYING TO HECKLE IT AWAY.

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-01-13 03:13:45

Sparrows, cardinals, hawks, occasionally turkey vultures and foxes—although you mainly *hear* the foxes. Don't see as many squirrels around here as at my old place.

lee4hmz · 2016-01-13 07:25:40

Not sure about birds, but we have hella squirrels and other furry things here. Mom hates them because they keep eating her plants.

lee4hmz · 2016-01-13 07:26:04

Oh, and we sometimes see deer past the fence in the backyard, under the power lines.

glennmagusharvey · 2016-01-13 07:40:58

In Florida:
* on the water: swans, Muscovy ducks, other ducks (a brown variety), great egrets, unidentified slider turtles
* in a nearby wetland preserve: soft-shelled turtles, various types of fish, marsh rabbit
* near the house: brown anole, eastern gray squirrel, crows
* pests in the house: big-headed ant, some really small fast ant, cellar spider (a.k.a. daddy-long legs spider), some kind of cockroach, various leafhoppers (flying around lights)
* beneficial (sorta) creature in the house: ensign wasp (a wasp that only preys on cockroach eggs), cellar spider
* in the woods/park: brown anole (lizard), golden silk orb-weaver (spider), green anole (only when I went to this one preserve in southwestern Florida), American alligator (uncommon)
* on the beach: some small sea creatures that I don't know about, some unidentified ants

In Virginia:
* on the water: a family of (resident?) Canada geese, some sort of brown duck, unidentified slider turtles
* occasional sightings: white-tailed deer, bald eagle
* in the grass, at dusk: lots of flying insects (gnats?)
* around the house: some kind of harvestman (probably eastern harvestman), eastern grey squirrel, eastern chipmunk, various non-waterfowl birds including cardinals
* pests in the house: house mouse, camel cricket, some black variety of cricket, black ants that love to drink water, various moths, some sort of dark-colored wolf spider
* at a park/woods/pond: marbled salamander, painted turtle, dragonflies, damselflies, scuds, some frogs, native and invasive snails etc.

Obviously neither list is comprehensive; just a selection of things that I can personally remember I've seen lately.

Would include fire ants in Florida but I haven't seen them around. I hear they decreased.

Obā-san · 2016-01-13 07:49:42

at this time of year: ya ain't seeing shit, nobody is outside its 10 below what kinda fuckin squirrel goes out in this weather

Salix Babylonika · 2016-01-13 07:50:50

one that's not a big b with a little p

glennmagusharvey · 2016-01-13 07:52:51

In Connecticut: eastern squirrels, probably chipmunks, wild turkeys, a woodchuck once, red foxes, candy-striped leafhopper, a variety of insects that would end up in a swimming pool near the woods, and in the house there were occasionally mice and cellar spiders and silverfish

In New York City: pigeons, spiders

In urban ring of Boston: silverfish, ants, mice, all as pests, plus pigeons outside I think

Tachyon · 2016-01-13 11:46:19

Fossilmaiden said:
Squirrels, birds (swans, crows, ducks, and pigeons, mostly), the occasional rabbit and mouse, rats, sometimes foxes, and really rarely, badgers. You can find deer around here, but you'd have to head into the woods.

Fossilmaiden said:
Oh right, you get boar in the forest too, but you don't particularly want to see those. Sometimes when it's wet we get frogs?

also, sparrows, magpies, newts, bats, seagulls, in summer you might see lizards, grass snakes and slow worms but you have to look for them

MadassAlex · 2016-01-13 12:14:46

I live in suburban Melbourne, Australia. It's a coastal city sitting against the south east coast, sitting in an amazingly, pointlessly defensible bay. More specifically, I live north east of the city. I am not sure how much this changes which animals one is likely to see.

Magpies, a type of corvid, are pretty common. Crows, too, come to think of it. Rosellas and galahs can be seen regularly as well. I'm not sure of the names of the smaller birds. During the daylight hours, one is most likely to see cats prowling their backyards; fauna associated more closely with a foreigner's view of Australia might be found in suburbs further out, but are even more likely to be found near regional towns. I refer to the likes of kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, dingoes, and so on.

At night, possums and fruit bats are common visitors. Possums sometimes caused my household some problems by squeezing into the hollows of the house exterior, but we took some measures against that. I much prefer the fruit bats. In fact, I have a fond memory of one swooping past me as I walked home at night; I was walking towards a corner lamppost, and one flew right over my shoulder, pulling its wings in to avoid collision and spreading them again as it swerved against the light. It was a misty night, too. Real Batman stuff right there.

The fruit bats are mostly cooperative neighbours. I'm particularly fond of watching them fly when the moon is bright and full, because they cast excellent silhouettes against a dark blue sky. I don't smoke anymore, but I have fond memories of watching the bats in the cool night air, smoke visibly rising against the moon while the bats pass overhead. Unlike the possums, who pick verbal fights at the drop of a hat, the bats remind me of peace.

Tachyon · 2016-01-13 12:26:32

oh, about badgers: while it's not that often you actually see one, you can hear them sometimes at night

they make a heck of a mess of people's back gardens around here fairly regularly, and sometimes they tip bins over

Tachyon · 2016-01-13 12:37:42

we also get blackbirds and robins, how could i forget those?

insects and other invertebrates: bees, wasps, cellar spiders, house spiders, garden orb weavers, hoverflies, harvestmen, craneflies, dragonflies, damselflies, mosquitos, ladybirds, maybugs, lacewings, woodlice, butterflies, moths, slugs, snails, earthworms, water beetles, horseflies, ants, weevils, silverfish, that's just off the top of my head, no way you'd list all of them

Vriska · 2016-01-13 13:33:00

Oh yeah there was a mouse in my apartment once too.

Dusty killed it, which was a very cat thing of her to do.

As far as invertebrates go, I see a lot of black flies, stink bugs (ick), gnats, moths (which Dusty also enjoys killing), a couple kinds of butterflies (those little yellow ones and blue ones mostly though I did see a monarch once), bees, sometimes wasps and hornets, and several varieties of spiders (cellar spiders, house spiders, jumping spiders, and a couple of those pretty orb weaver spiders(,

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-01-13 14:20:16

We get deer now and then, too, but I haven't seen many lately. Again, way more where I used to live, which is funny seeing as we were much closer to the city. But there was less traffic and more green space. And the house does have mice, and perhaps a rat, but the cat has killed most of them.

@Alex: Your possums are way more conventionally cute than ours, although ours are affably doofy and timid and so ugly they're cute again. They also move really, really slowly. I haven't seen one in person in a very long time, though.

Epitome · 2016-01-13 14:36:28

Armadillos, bats, peacocks. The usual birds and squirrels. Some angry ass ducks and geese.

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-01-13 14:39:38

Peacocks?

Epitome · 2016-01-13 14:43:42

Yep. And apparently they're assholes. They're really mostly restricted to specific neighborhoods, but they're there in people's driveways roaming around screaming and shedding.

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-01-13 15:06:08

Ah, I've heard about the peacocks around Houston! Apparently their nastiness tends to be exaggerated by people who don't like them being loud and/or pooping on their lawn—a lot of stuff I've heard suggests mostly they're just kind of there—although some rogue males are about as mean as rogue ganders, which is to say they are vicious bastards.

Also, apparently it was either outside of Houston or in another weird place that had feral peacocks that some fuckwad was poisoning them, including ones that were basically people's pets.

glennmagusharvey · 2016-01-13 16:59:16

Canada geese are fairly aggressive, especially if you have food.

They might hiss at you if you get too close to them especially if they have goslings, but if you have food they will chase you up a hill.

As for other animals:

There's a sanctuary for injured wildlife nearby in Florida. It's called Flamingo Gardens. True to its name it does indeed have flamingos but also a bunch of American white ibises, some roseate spoonbills, some pelicans, some more ducks which I am no good at identifying, a bunch of peafowl, a variety of turtles (mostly freshwater and hard-shelled, but one snapper), a couple alligators, a few river otters, a black bear, a series of owls (burrowing, barn, etc.) and eagles (bald, golden, etc.) and hawks (such as the red-shouldered hawk), and also a few vultures. And there's this one bird of prey whose name I forgot.

On a less savory note, I recently identified a fall armyworm in some veggies from a supermarket.

On an even less savory note, drain flies (that's literally their common name and it is indeed one species) are an occasional sight around poorly-maintained bathrooms.

Tachyon · 2016-01-13 21:32:01

They used to use ganders as an alternative to guard dogs, y'know

still do in some places

Princess Alice · 2016-01-14 01:45:46

When I worked at Pepsi there was a pond on the property and the Canada geese would walk back and forth from the pond to the woods across the street.

It was always amusing to sit and watch traffic stop for 3 minutes while people waited for a long line of geese to cross the road.

Tachyon · 2016-01-14 01:56:07

GOOSE XING

eriophora zia · 2016-01-14 03:11:28

There are a lot of coyotes, bunnies, and magpies here. There are also a good number of red-winged blackbirds, as well as a few owls - there is one who lives outside my apartment complex who I have named Owlvin. Every now and then his girlfriend, Owlexandra, stops by as well.

Tre · 2016-01-14 03:13:00

What do you call Daffy as he walks over a Beijing road?

PED XING DUCK

Salix Babylonika · 2016-01-14 03:14:49

fuck

Obā-san · 2016-01-14 03:17:46

oohhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo

Aliroz · 2016-01-14 04:16:32

Deer all over the place. In the alfalfa fields adjacent to the front and back lawns of my house. They wreck my dad's guarden. i sometimes see snakes, and when I do, it means it is a good day. Sometimes I see turtles at the canal, though that hasn't happened in years. I also see ducks by the canal. I hear dogs barking when I walk home, and I see and feed cows and horses in fields as I walk home from school and Church.

I once saw a cat that seemed too big to be a housecat, and I thought it was a bobcat or cougar or something, but if it was, it must have left my area.

Insects all the time. Squirrelsand crows all over school. A huge variety of little colorful songbirds (though, sadly, not so many as there used to be... pigeons and starlings...)

There used to be newts and lizards at the canal. My Uncle used to refuse to mow the lawn because he wouldn't kill the garter snakes.

I see cats quite often, often with birds in their mouth. I think that the cats are why the snakes are not nearly so numerous as they once were; and the non-starling birds.

There weren't deer in the valley when my grandma lived here. But since that one drought year where the deer wandered into the valley and realized that the people were unwilling to shoot them (my mom was in high school), they have been an annual menace to trees and gardens.

glennmagusharvey · 2016-01-14 19:35:13

I think we occasionally saw a garden snake in Connecticut.

Also I forgot to specify what would fall into the pool, but the noticeable specimens were usually beetles, mice, and spiders.

What animals do you see in your local area?

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