Animals around your house...

Riendeer For a few moments I thought I was sleeping
Great pic, really.

And these Canadian geese! I remember lots of them in Suomenlinna (Helsinki, Finland) and in Sweden. And they seemed to be really friendly and curious birds (and bold at times))

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I love reindeer-babies

GORGEOUS, wonderful pictures

Wow! You have to drive very carefully , not to hit any of them

You are right, those babies are the most lovely ever, - come to think of it, - has any brand ever made a baby reindeer ?

Beautiful photos Krista Lovely reindeer and soo cute babies :)
BTW now I see the legs of Papo reindeer are all right :)

ana wrote:

BTW now I see the legs of Papo reindeer are all right :)

I was thinking about the legs of the Safari reindeer I've seen reindeers but only a couple of times, since I don't live that north. And the babies I don't think I've ever seen. They are really cute, thanks for the photos!

ana wrote:

Beautiful photos Krista :D Lovely reindeer and soo cute babies :)
BTW now I see the legs of Papo reindeer are all right :) :lol:

They're not mine, they're Kiana's photos! But lovely photos anyway.

I live in Finland too, but in the southern part. So there's no reindeer here. I live by the sea, so there's a lot of birds here.
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(sorry for boring gray photos : D)

The only mammals that I see somewhat regularly are rabbits, hares and squirrels...

Oh, I'm sorry for my mistake Krista and Kiana.
But now I see You also sent beautiful photos Krista I love first picture especially, thank You for sharing :)

No problem

Lovely pics Krista :)
I would also love to photograph birds here but my camera is... crap.

Great pics!

We have reindeer where I live too, occasionally they've even turned up downtown! (That sounds like the clueless tourist version of Norway, doesn't it - reindeer and polar bears wander the streets and everyone going around wearing horned viking helmets... ) They pass through the area while moving between summer and winter pastures, and because the herds are so huge there are always stragglers and strays. Sadly there have been many, many reindeer fatalities this year - though "luckily" most have been caused by trains, not cars.

Kiana, are "your" reindeer wild ones? The ones around here are all semi-domesticated, meaning they have owners but generally live as they would in the wild.

As for animals directly around my house, it's mostly gulls and magpies, and I'm not good enough a photographer to capture either! Nor do I have any pics of Haircat, Tigerwimp, Earcurls, Brown Haircat, Flooftail, Basement Cats #1-5*, or any of the other kittehs I meet on a regular basis. (As far as I know, none of these are the cats' actual names... but you have to call them something!)




* - at last count. Dang, there are a lot of black cats about!

Sumo wrote:

Kiana, are "your" reindeer wild ones? The ones around here are all semi-domesticated, meaning they have owners but generally live as they would in the wild.

I think they are same, every owner has different neckless colour and ear numbers but reindeers walk free here everywhere, even in the middle of "city" I use to live in south finland and now 8 years here north, and I still start scream to inspire when I see them close by :) South, where I use to live, we had lots of white-tailed deers, but they are too shy and fast to photograph...

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Here is reindeers having a daytime nap front of a new sport-store few days a go...

Kiana84 wrote:

No problem :D

Lovely pics Krista :)
I would also love to photograph birds here but my camera is... crap.

I don't like to take photos of animals in general. Because they move!
I think it's hard enough to take photos of my dog.. :'D

It's nice to see reindeer outside the house.

Taking animal photo & you needs to adjust faster shutter speed manually on your camera!

Caribou!! Thanks for the great photos!

I used to have a large kitchen garden at the other side of the lane, but as hordes of water voles invaded the place and ate all the roots, I gave up.
So now it is just a nice place with weeds and flowers and a large compost heap.

My "Kitchengarden"
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One late evening at the end of August my dogs barked and barked and were really hysterical .
I went out with a torch to see what could be wrong, but could see nothing unusual.

Then the first evening of September I went over to throw some stuff on the compost heap, and this is waht I saw :
Some animal had dug and clawed and jumped and scraped under a bush to get to a large bee`s nest !!!!
You can see how the vegetation is flattened , and bits and pieces of the home of poor bees is scattered around.
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I did not dare to go too near, because even if it was dark, the bees were very active.
We call them "Earth bees", because they live underground..perhaps they are active at night ?
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It was clear that they had already almost repaired the holes in their nest
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Three days later it looked like the nest was repaired, and I contemplated to try to help them and fill up with soil, but I was nervous that I might cause them to suffocate.
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A week later, the 11th they had begun to put on a layer of dark material, - already the nest is not so visible.
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The 12 th of September :
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The little insects are working hard at it. But I have not seen any bees in the flowers since...I hope they will have gathered enough food for the winter, because obviously they are all just working at their house now

Bee nest! Wow, Susanne that's exciting! You must be careful with them I think, they could be bite yes? But indeed exciting residents in Your garden Thank You for photos!
It's fascinating to see progress in their works, how they hide their nest after "invasion", so small and so hard working animals

Wonderful 'work in progress' photos of the bees nest, Susanne! And your kitchengarden looks like mine - only I call mine 'biotop'
This is the sort of animal I see most often. Especially this spring I had a mice invasion in the house. And they'll come back now, as it gets colder outside - ggrmpf. I always catch them alive in this sort of trap. When they pull on the bait, the door slams shut. The whitish stuff on the left is the bait - a piece of dried bread. I think they are actually quite cute - but I don't want them in the kitchen
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Thankyou, Anna and Simone

Yes, mice are enormously cute, - but not inside the house

But worse than a mouse is half a mouse...one summer morning I sleepily put on my clogs - with bare feet - and one of the cats had hidden half a mouse in one of them

Gosh! I woke up

SUSANNE wrote:

Thankyou, Anna and Simone

Yes, mice are enormously cute, - but not inside the house

But worse than a mouse is half a mouse...one summer morning I sleepily put on my clogs - with bare feet - and one of the cats had hidden half a mouse in one of them

Gosh! I woke up

Wow, Your cat just wanted to give You a nice present Susanne

One of cats of my grandpa hunted also on rats, and one morning we found dead rat on the path, just in front of the doors That was very strong cat I think, very lovely also

In the park near the place where I live now are some very nice birds :) I took some photos of them two weeks ago and finally found time to post them here

Indian running duck, in water it's hard to see her untypical body posture.
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This I think must be Tufted duck male but in his Autumn/Winter feathers.
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And lots of Barnacle geese everywhere They are so beautiful and it's nice that they are not afraid of people in the park.
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One interesting thing I've read recently was about Barnacle goose and Goose barnacle I think many of You knew it before but I felt very surprised reading about the reason of two species having almost the same name. Arkive writes about it:
Goose barnacles gave rise to one of the strangest of animal beliefs. The heart-shaped shell, or ‘capitulum’, is a chalky-white in colour and has black lines, which were thought to resemble the head of the barnacle goose Branta leucopsis. Because barnacle geese rarely nest in Britain no-one had ever seen their eggs or nests. It was supposed, therefore, that the geese ‘grew up on the planks of ships’ and the birds finally emerged clothed in feathers and flew away. This curious theory also provided a convenient way round the church’s ban on eating meat or flesh on Fridays. As the barnacle goose was obviously “not born of the flesh” but from a barnacle, they could be eaten not just on Fridays but throughout Lent!

Thanks for telling Ana! That's very interesting! I love also the birds and pictures and how lucky you are having the chance of interacting with them.
Tufted ducks are very charming creatures!
Interesting to see how talented are Susanne bees!

Susanne's talented bees! i hope they do all right this winter, that they didn't lose too much by this attack on their nest. How interesting and exciting to watch them at work.


THis picture is exquisite. I love the final detail of the plants in front and the soft focus on the bird. very peaceful!
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I have been watching this little creature all summer. She is now about 2 inches/ 5 cm long. The first photo shows her color best. I'm hoping it's a California Mantid (Stagmomantis californica) since that would mean it's female, but the wings might be too long. Otherwise, it's probably the Mediterranean Mantid (Iris oratoria), except it's not green enough. Main thing is, i'm hoping it's a female, since i want more!!!!
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isn't she beautiful?!! actually, they are kind of alien looking, especially the way they turn their heads to look at you. But who cares!? they are such great predators that they are beautiful.

Those are such beautiful pictures Anna, I love the one of the white duck preening the light is amazing!

Mastiffcat wrote:

I'm hoping it's a California Mantid (Stagmomantis californica).

Carolynn she's incredible! Is a Mantis and a Mantid they same thing?

Oh I've just seen Susanne's bees (I wondered what Roger meant ) wow! That's just amazing, what a thing to see. I think it's incredible how they deal with the damage to their home - what have they used as a replacement for the earth that was on top?

HKHollinstone wrote:

Those are such beautiful pictures Anna, I love the one of the white duck preening the light is amazing!

i thought the same thing! so pretty!

Quote :

Mastiffcat wrote:

I'm hoping it's a California Mantid (Stagmomantis californica).

Carolynn she's incredible! Is a Mantis and a Mantid they same thing?

yes. i've always called them Mantis, but my bug book calls them Mantids, so....
She's made her home in the biggest native plant in my yard, which seems to be the grasshoppers' favorite plant, but thanks to her, very few of the baby hoppers have grown up to be big hoppers. that she chose a chaparral plant gives me hope that she is S. californica.

I love animal pictures from people's towns! These are various animals at my house, from a few blocks of my house or some are further away but still in town.

Northern Shoveler-Anas clypeata and Blue Winged Teal-Anas discors
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Great Blue Heron -Ardea herodias with fish
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Three Toed Box Turtle- Terrapene carolina triunguis
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Mourning Dove-Zenaida macroura
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My dog Winston-Canis lupus familiaris stubornious and Snapping Turtle-Chelydra serpentin
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Ruby-throated Hummingbird female-Archilochus colubris
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Red Wing Blackbird-Agelaius phoeniceus
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Canada Geese-Branta canadensis
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Raccoon-Procyon lotor
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Muskrat-Ondatra zibethicus Native to N. America but introduced to Europe and Asia.
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Magicicada, Brood XIX Rolla MO May-June 2011. Every 13 years, Brood XIX tunnels en masse to the surface of the ground, lays eggs, and then dies off in several weeks. Hundreds of thousands (millions? don't have a clue. ) showed up here, making quite a din!! This is a recently discovered species, Magicicada neotredecim. 2011 was the first appearance of Brood XIX since the discovery of the new species, which was first observed in brood XIX in 1998 when scientists observed an unexpected peak of acoustical frequencies in the brood's song. We also have a 17 year cicada, brood IV, and every so often the two overlap and emerge at the same time, last time in 1998.
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