I've lived in this house almost 40 years, and for a good part of that time there was a scrub wetland area right across the street, with a salt marsh/river a few hundred meters to the east. The county eventually filled in the wetlands and built a "middle school" DIRECTLY across the street, but there's still a fair amount of wetland scrub on the property.
We still get a fair amount of wildlife wandering through the neighborhood, mostly at night, and a few weeks ago I came home from work after 6pm and "surprised" an adult raccoon who was plundering on my tiny back porch. The 'coons can be heard squalling and squabbling with the neighborhood cats from time to time, and we have to keep tight lids on our trash cans. During acorn season we've heard/seen deer happily dining under the oak tree in the front yard late at night, and we have bumper crops of pesky gray squirrels every year.
Used to despise the squirrels, but now I enjoy their brainless antics; also the relatively recent increase in the anole population. Funny little lizards, both macho and gutless at the same time, doing "bad-ass push-ups" and displaying their red throat blades at us humans---then running like thieves to "escape" when they suddenly realize we're NOT impressed by their shows of bravado. If they were the size of wolves we'd be in MAJOR trouble---
House wrens, mocking birds, doves, hawks, owls---we have birds of some sort all the time, year-round.
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We still get a fair amount of wildlife wandering through the neighborhood, mostly at night, and a few weeks ago I came home from work after 6pm and "surprised" an adult raccoon who was plundering on my tiny back porch. The 'coons can be heard squalling and squabbling with the neighborhood cats from time to time, and we have to keep tight lids on our trash cans. During acorn season we've heard/seen deer happily dining under the oak tree in the front yard late at night, and we have bumper crops of pesky gray squirrels every year.
Used to despise the squirrels, but now I enjoy their brainless antics; also the relatively recent increase in the anole population. Funny little lizards, both macho and gutless at the same time, doing "bad-ass push-ups" and displaying their red throat blades at us humans---then running like thieves to "escape" when they suddenly realize we're NOT impressed by their shows of bravado. If they were the size of wolves we'd be in MAJOR trouble---
House wrens, mocking birds, doves, hawks, owls---we have birds of some sort all the time, year-round.
I'd go crazy living in a large, sterile city...