I never thought I'd have a contribution to make to this thread, because the wildlife in my small Texas town (on the edge of a medium-sized city) is usually limited to birds (some black ones are the size of a small cat), squirrels, squirrels, and more squirrels. (Also, an occasional snake, skunk, armadillo or raccoon, on some of the country roads.) However, I have had a couple of surprises lately.

A month or so ago, after 2-3 days of heavy rain, I walked in my garage to find a "humongous" green bullfrog, sitting in the middle of a round, padded cat-bed on the garage floor. I mean, this sucker was the size of a plate! We coaxed him into a box and carried him to a friend's house 20 miles away, and put him in a creek.

Tonight, I opened the door into the garage to find a large white possum, sitting on top of the miniature pool table, eating out of a bag of cat food. As with the bullfrog, the cats acted like they didn't even notice.

Wildlife is nice, but I do wish they wouldn't come in my garage ... :)

Donna

Donna, you can't complain until a possum crawls under your house...... meets his maker (I think he got hold of mouse bait/poision).... you don't want to know!!!!!! And it was Christmas week.........=-o That was a sweet thing you did for Kermit!:-)

Our first set of mourning dove babies flew away last month and now there are two more babies....I don't know if it is the same mother dove as the first time, or if some other dove is using the same nest. It looks like the nest was built up some more since the last time. I guess good nesting real estate is hard to find!

My hummingbird never came back (weep weep)

Who else is seeing tons of gorgeous Golden Finches about now? Ours are so beautiful......... decorate my feeders so well!:-)

My hawk is still in his cul de sac, believe it or not! Not on the mailbox, but up in a huge tree there this morning. Today he was letting himself be heard. Asked DH what he thought he was saying......... "I'm HERE, I'm NEAR, watch your a** or I'll have you for breakfast!":P

And, Scarlett, we have a Hummer-tyrant who is busy chasing away all the other hummers from two feeders!!! I'll try to send him your way!;;)

Scarlett - I can sit at my computer and the hummingbirds come right to window. I'll send them your way too!

Bonnie - your hawk is still there! What a way to start your day!

I saw another raccoon this morning and a beaver! We're watching him closely and will probably have to call "authorities" as they toppled trees last year.

And, for the first time ever, we saw the wood duck babies! So tiny and so cute!

Home at last from a 2-1/2 week road trip, but spent last night at friends' at Lake Tahoe. This morning about 5 am our friend Claudia woke us calling, "Come quick! A bear just knocked over our garbage can!" We dashed to the window in time to see a large brown bear ambling up the neighbor's driveway. Now that's some wildlife in your yard! (Yes, Phil Flash did get one quick photo, but the bear insisted on a flattering soft focus. :-D)

Marilyn!! Welcome back!!
I cannot wait to hear about Portland .. :D

Today it's hummingbirds in my yard.

Does anyone know if this is the longest thread, or how long the longest thread was?

LOL, Today might be Gekkos in my House!!
Last night, for the second time, we had to chase and catch a baby gekko and get it out of the house, all in one piece, with Pup barking and bouncing and in on the fun!
I guess they come in every time we open a door, but then all of a sudden, we notice one (in the shower!) or on a wall. Last night was on a wall, over the tv..maybe he just wanted to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm?
They are fast and hard to catch but I am happy to say we managed and he is outside, telling all his little gekko pals about it. In his story, of course, he fought us all off and escaped. :)
I am still waiting for my hummingbirds!

The last time I checked the thread about food you got on vacation that you can't get at home? had over 400 replies. Btw I witnessed a hummingbird flying from about a foot away out my window. That was pretty amazing. Don't know how he didn't see me.

We had gazillions of hummingbirds at the cottage in Victoria (BC). The owners had put up a hummingbird feeder, but the birds seemed to prefer the hanging baskets of fuschia around the deck. What an amazing thing to watch - we'd hear the whirr of their wings before we even saw them. I tried to take a few pictures; what I've got is lots of pictures of fuschia, with a few blurs next to them. Back home in Toronto I don't think I've ever seen one, although some friends outside of the city say that they come around from time to time.

The Win-o's Only thread on Other Topics has over 400 posts, and the Where Are You From post has about 650.

I was tickled, and quite surprised, to see three baby frogs (toads?) in our yard yesterday while mowing the grass. We've seen frogs (toads?) before but thought it was a fluke--don't frogs (toads?) need standing water for survival? I know nothing about frogs (toads?) and hope they found a safe / happy home out back. Seeing the skunk emerge from the garden yesterday was not a total surprise as my husband discovered him (her?) the other day while tooling about in the yard...I was standing at the kitchen sink when I saw him (husband) sprint suddenly across the yard yelling "babe, babe...you're not going to believe this". The skunk appears to be a juvenille and his presence explains all the digging that's been going on at night around the yard. Cute as a bug. I like the smell of skunk from a distance but the up close and personal odor is quite musky, strong, too much! I hate to think what will happen should he (she?) get agitated and spray.... =-O

Scarlett - I had to laugh at your gymnastics in evicting your resident gekko.

When we lived in Hawaii we used to welcome them in the house. They are fastidious liitle lizards and they were useful in keeping the bug population in check. In fact, for about six months, we had one that was assigned afternoon patrol duty apparently. Every day about 4:00 pm, s/he would appear along the living room wall about a foot below the ceiling and circle the room for 3-4 hours, then go away.

We could always tell when we had a gekko and when we did not just by the population of tropical bugs that can be gotten rid of in no other way in the island-style wood frame houses.

Three times during my walks this past week, I have seen the neatest thing. A "family" of Mallards.......... plus a big snow white duck, that has apparently decided to live on the "wild side." I've counted each time........ seven Mallards and "Snow White." How cool! :-)

Scarlett, did your hummers ever come back?

Hey, Patrick,

So why doesn't Fodors kill this thread?

LOL I was just thinking about this thread Sunday. It was "cocktail hour", and DH and I set our glasses down under a palm tree while we went to check on something else. We came back to find my glass overturned, and he began to laugh as he picked up his. This is what we found: http://pages.prodigy.net/cmcdaniel/C...ill%20Plus.JPG

We can only imagine how he got in here? A 1 and 1/2 gainer from the palm tree. A standing broad jump and he missed with mine?

Interestingly, when we first looked at him he was pure golden, just the color of the Chardonnay. I think his skin was sort of repelling and reflecting the wine. By the time we got the picture we'd lost the golden effect.

We dumped the glass and he staggered off, with a blood alcohol count of 3.0 out of a possible 4. :D

OO, that is too funny! :-) I hope the hangover wasn't a bad one!