So Look Around..

[Labrys]

Where every you are, urban, suburban or rural pagans...look around yourself for those furry, feathery or finny things?
(It is redundant to say rural pagans, isn't it, lol)

What are the most common wild things you see weekly, where you live.

Here in the Pac NorWest, in a rural area rapidly becoming suburbanized we see:

Deer
Coyotes
Rabbits
Voles
Mice
Shrews
Moles
Raccoons
Opossums
Hawks (of about four types)
Bald eagles
Tree frogs - itsy bitsy adorable things
Salamanders
Garter snakes (my personal favorite)
Squirrels - little red & black ones, and fat gray ones.
Birds - everything from ravens and other corvids to cranes, herons and smaller birds like song sparrows and swallows, finches, robins, nuthatches, towhees....this list alone could take me an hour. 

[Leigh]

We live in a subdivision that's surrounded by country.  We use to have a beautiful rabbit living in our front yard under our porch.  Unfortunately, I heard recently that some neighbor killed her.  I don't understand why some people feel a need to irradicate nature.  We try to make our yard nature friendly.  We don't weed and feed the lawn (I've heard too many studies on how the chemicals cause cancer in dogs.)  Since we have clover and dandilions the rabbits never ate our veggies in our garden.  (We keep the weeds out of the garden though.)  I feed the birds every day and we plant bushes and trees for them too.  Just trying to build a little sanctuary in our part of the world. 

[Feuer Wortel]

Let's see...here in South Carolina.

Heat (I know you can't see it, but it is so thick you can swim through it)
Birds - mostly vultures.
Trees (No idea what kind)
Bugs (every kind)
alligators
squirrels
Deer
more bugs


I am not all that knowledgeable on wildlife. Nuclear fission on the other hand...I'm all over that.

[Jennie]

Ibis, egrets, sandhill cranes, red-shouldered hawks, sparrows, mourning doves, blue jays, mockingbirds, great blue herons,kingfishers,bald eagles,osprey, ravens,seagulls, wild turkeys, and whatever is migrating through.

Squirrels in great abundance, raccoons, opossums,the odd red fox, deer, manatees, dolphins, corn snakes, garter snakes, coachwhips, black racers, mice, Carolina anoles, geckos, skinks, green tree frogs, toads, snapping turtles, and more kinds of insects than you can shake a sick at.

[Labrys]

Let's see...here in South Carolina.

Heat (I know you can't see it, but it is so thick you can swim through it)

You can HAVE that heat.  I went to Virginia in August a couple years ago.  I am staying in the Nor'west from now on!

[Labrys]

 manatees, dolphins,

Ooooh, I am jealous!  My son, while on the East Coast went to visit a friend on the coast, they went to the ocean  and (rare for him) into the water.  Dolphins came up to them...touching close and they swam with them.  What a lucky man he is!  I've not seen a dolphin since girl-hood, they used to race the bow of the boat my father had.

[Lark]

Living on 75 acres in rural Tennessee we get a lot of wildlife.  We have not allowed hunting on our land in the 24 years we've been here so everything feels free to roam around out yard pretty much unconcerned about what the silly two-legs might be doing.  Our most common visitors include:

Deer - lately several does with fawns at side
Raccoons
Oppossum
Mice
Wild turkeys
Rabbits
Red-Tailed and Cooper's hawks
Barred owls
Several varieties of snakes - garter, King, black
Box turtles
Many, many birds of all kinds
Squirrels - red and grey
Fox - mostly greys but the occasional red
Coyotes

And once I saw a lynx while driving home.

-Lark-

[Labrys]

I completely forgot about the owl here!  But then, I have never seen the Great Horned Owl that took some of our ducklings last spring, we only hear it! 

They say we have fox and wildcat here, too, but I have never gotten a glimpse of one. Nor of the cougar that used to come to our pond in August when it gets dry.  Just a few pad marks.

[Lark]

Oh and I forgot our wonderful bats.  We have a cave just up the road that's full of a large population of two endangered species of bats, both greys and Indianas.  I love to watch them on a summer evening.  We have almost no problem with bugs in the evenings because of our little flitter mice.

-Lark-

[Labrys]

Oh and I forgot our wonderful bats.  We have a cave just up the road that's full of a large population of two endangered species of bats, both greys and Indianas.  I love to watch them on a summer evening.  We have almost no problem with bugs in the evenings because of our little flitter mice.

-Lark-

I forgot the bats, too.  I never really see those, any more than I see the owl, but when walking at night I hear some little high pitched click-squeaks that surely can't be anything else.  Sometimes a little swoop of shadow is visible, but nothing more.

 Swallows by day and bats by night,
 whatever eats the mosquitos is alright!

[Leigh]

We had friends over this weekend and ended up on the deck under the moonlight and all of us got to see an owl fly by.  Very unusual flight pattern.  Now if you'd like to send us some of your bats to eat our mosquitoes I'd be very appreciative.  I'm not sure if they'd like our home though because we live in a very windy place.  It has taken a while to get use to the wind.  You learn to either get very heavy outdoor furniture or get creative in tying things down so the wind doesn't take it away.  Still putting seed out for the birds and hoping to attract more animals though.  The black birds and doves have found us.  But I have to say this weekend's owl was the first I've seen around here.

Warm Wishes,
Leigh