As i mentioned in another tread, i would like to see the animals you see regularly in or around your house.
They can be pics taken by yourself, or family, or just from the internet if you like.
But pics taken by yourself would be the nicest of course.
As i live in an appartment-block, there are no possibilities to make pictures there, so i show you some pics of animals that come to the garden of my girlfriend almost every day, or at least regularly.
I don't own a good digital camera, so i take my pics with the cam on my cell-phone, which has 5 MPX.
You must know, that this garden is about 10 m long, and 5 m wide, typical for a Dutch garden, when your house is builded in rows next to eachother, as we see here most of the time.
This garden is filled with tiles, but with nice green edges of plants or hedges, and i made a cosy corner in the left and right back, where lots of birds and other animals show up.
There is a hedgehog, that is visiting us almost every day, when the ligt of the sun begins to fade.
In the very early morning there is a member of the martens-family, which i didn't see yet, but my girlfriend and neighbour-woman did, so he is still a mystery for me.
But next to these two mammals, we have lots of insects, like butterflies, and quit a few bird-species and some amphibians.
As you know, all animals are not easy to get close to, but here are some examples where i could.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The backside of the garden, with a build-up of street-tiles i made, to hide this little Eros statue, surrounded by some little trees.
Then lots of plant-pots, an old wooden bench, which i took from the rubbish(somebody threw it away), and a nice birdhouse, in the style of an old Dutch farmhouse(which we took from the rubbish too).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The left corner with the tile build-up
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Here is the birdhouse in the right back corner of the garden, with a visiting great tit(Parus major).
We have 3 species of tits visiting the garden, next to this one, we have the little blue tit(Cyanistes caeruleus) all year too, and in the last months of the year and in the early months of the year, we have the long-tailed tit (Aegithalos caudatus) in little groups too.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This is the best pic i could make from the long-tailed tit last winter
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This pic is taken from far away, but it shows a house sparrow(Passer domesticus) female, while a great tit is hanging on the ball of fat.
To bad, the sparrow numbers are going down fast(with 50% already around here), because the new style of house-building, doesn't give them good possibilities to make their nest(they like to make their nest under the roof-tiles).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Here is an older pic of a little group of house sparrows, that are inspecting an older breeding-house i hung up some years ago.
For 3 years in a row, the succeeded to bring up some youngsters there.
Now there is a more stabil one, which is shown here with an inspecting great tit.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This pair of collared doves(Streptopelia decaocto) is visiting the garden everyday, to get some seeds from the birdhouse.
They originate from the south of Europe, and got here in the early 1950s, and are always around people.
We have wood pigeons too, which is our biggest pigeon-species, but they are hard to get on pic, because they are shy.
Normally a bird from the woods and forests, but they are quit common in the cities too these times.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Another pic of the collared doves.
Last week, i we were sitting in the garden in the late hours, when i heard a lot of noise in the bushes at the end of the garden.
I suspected a hedgehog, who are famous to make lots of noise like there is a grown man walking through the bushes.
When i went to see, he was almost walking over my feet the first time.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Seen from the top.
Later he came back, and stumbled around the bushes, and came out for short, but the light was almost gone, so i had to take pics with flash, and then my cam on my cell-phone is just not enough to make any decent pics, but here he is again.
He was blinded by the flash for some minutes, so he gave me the opportunity to take some blurry pics.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Further, we have 2 or 3 species of amphibians, the common from(Rana temporaria), the green frog(Rana esculanta synklepton) and the common toad(Bufo bufo).
Outside of the breeding season, the live most of the time on land.
They like the shady patches in the garden, and were there is much leaf on the ground.
They love to sit in the flowerpots, specially after they are watered, much to the shock of my girlfriend, who is afraid of them, haha.
Here are some pics of the common frogs.
They have different colour-versions, from greenish to darkbrown.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The brown frog, a juvenile one.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Somewhat nearer.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Another little one.
Here is another little corner of the garden, where i made a build-up of broken tile pieces, to put different sizes of flower-pots there.
Under these tiles, lots of spiders, insects and frogs hide around.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Now i show you some of the butterflies and other insect, that fly around in the garden, and specially like to visit the butterfly-bush(Buddleja davidii), which attracts lots of them.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]One of the many species of bumble-bees.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]And one of the many species of dragon-flies, i believe it is the Lestus barbarus, but Blaine could answer this question i guess.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This butterfly is called small white(Pieris papae), and is very common around here.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This one is quit common too, and called peacock butterfly(Aglais io) which is obvious when you look at her.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Another pic of this species.
The third species i was able to take pics of, is the red admiral buttefly(Vanessa atalanta), which you see in big numbers too the last two months.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The next pictures, i took at the water-edge of a pond near my own house(about 500 m away), where these both goose-species did breed with succes.
Both species are quit common to our country now.
Of course you know the Canadian goose(Branta canadensis), which originates from North-America.
We have about 1000 breeding pairs here in Holland at the moment.
The other species on the pics, are the Egyptian goose(Alopochen aegyptiaca), which you see more and more in the Netherlands the last years.
There was a breeder in the late 1960's, which let them fly free, and now we have far over 1000 breeding-pairs too.
Typical is always, that you see them fly around in pairs only, but sometimes the congregate in bigger numbers outside the breeding season.
Actually, it is not a goose, but a so called half-goose or shel-duck(Tadorninae), and family of the common shelduck(Tadorna tadorna).
Here are some pics of both species.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Canadians.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]One of them, very cocky and curious to see if i had some food for him.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]A breeding pair of the Egyptian goose.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]And their big group of youngsters, which hushed away when i tried to make a picture of them.
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They are adorable creatures.
