Animals around your house...

Holy smokes!! I'm so glad you and your family are safe! That wildfire had to be scary!

Seeing the wild burro is a splendid experience, I hope you have many more of those wonderful encounters and no more of the far too exciting wildfire experiences.

Glad you and yours are safe! Wildfires are terrifying; I remember the ones we had here, in '98...
Those pics of the jack are great!

nice photos of the wild burro and the birds! including the glossy ibis!

Glad to hear you are safe from the wild fires Paige. That would have been quite scary to experience. It's good that the firefighters managed to contain it.

Your life is full of excitment since you moved to the new place. Unfrotunately not all experiences are good but fortunately you're safe from the wild fire. Though, it seems you can find a lot of animals you couldn't find before. I love the wild burro.

At the beach today
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Oh, what a wonderful topic! Went through all of the posts with a lot of interest - thank you for sharing. All kind of animals truly make our live richer and colourful :)

Here are our lovely night garden visitors at the village house, who do not understand that the pavilion winter feeder is actually for daytime birds :)

House Marten
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Trio of European Badgers
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Also, two foxes and a jackal check-in quite often, but for good or bad, they are not interested in sunflower seeds and dry fruit :)

This is fantastic Maria! Badgers are present in the Portuguese territory and I've never seen one. It seems mustelids enjoy bird's meal.
Nice to see the heavy badgers and the agile martens. I think the red fox and golden jackal check only to see if they can hunt anything more proteic.

Wonderful to see the Beech/Stone Marten.We don't have them here in the UK only its close relative the rather rare Pine Marten.The Badgers look great as well.It would be wonderful if you got a photo of the jackal!Badgers and foxes are common urban animals in the UK.Foxes are quite easy animals to spot and especially this time of the year when they are looking for mates!

Here is the Jackal (Canis aureus) from a couple of nights ago.
Not the best photo, but this is closest to the camera he/she came to have a quick dry cherry snack

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Fantastic photo!!!So great that you have so much wonderful wildlife around you!

The place you live looks like a Nature reserve for European animals. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Wow, such cameras give you a good idea about the night time visitors! How cool is that! Thank you for sharing, Maria!
I love the photo with badgers especially, they are so cute. I never had the chance to see one in real life but I would love too.
And a jackal, quite an exciting visitor too! 🤩

In my front yard
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wow! so amazing, the baby crane! You are really lucky Kelly to see something as special as this!
are they nesting close by then?

Wow

Beautiful Sandhills!!!!

And I thought the pair we have nearby was close! Thats really quite a neat experience, to see their chick close up. :)

Thank you everyone! Only 1 chick this year, they don't always bring them by as young as this one.

Anna, non migratory sandhills are fairly common in my area. They learn where the non threatening suckers live quickly. I live across the street from a patch of woods and a lake; most of the nearby lakefront is undeveloped and they nest there. It is probably 100 yards or a bit more away.

Fantastic front yard

The cranes I see here are much bigger but unfortunately not as fantastic as those ones. So nice those elegant dinosaurs introduced their chick to you.

Thank you!
Baby grows fast. They brought it over twice today that I saw.
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These guys are not around my house necessarily but I saw them while on a trip to South Carolina. I was visiting the Turtle Survival Alliance for a chelonian husbandry course. If you're not familiar with the TSA (not the Transportation Security Administration), they were created in response to the Asian turtle crisis in the 90's, where millions of turtles were exported all over the world for the pet trade, rapidly depleting wild populations at a rate never before seen. It's still happening today, and many of the species they manage no longer exist in the wild. Each TSA program serves as assurance populations and as rehabituation clinics for the releases of confiscated turtles. This one in South Carolina is an assurance colony specifically for several species of Asian turtles. What that means is they are breeding genetically strong populations of these turtles and keeping them for the hopeful someday when they can be released. Unfortunately for many of these turtles, they will not be released in our lifetimes, as most of their native ranges are not suitable anymore for many reasons (habitat loss, lack of proper regulation for population collection, etc.).

Anyway, those turtles and the class were all very cool BUT we also did a little "herping" or poking around for native reptiles and amphibians and set a few water traps just to see what we would find. Everything pictured here was released immediately after photos!

Banded Water Snake (Nerodia fasciata)
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Red-bellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata)
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Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)
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American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus)
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Some other kind of toadlet, haha. Narrow Mouth I think! (Gastrophryne carolinensis)
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American Green Tree Frog (Hyla cinerea)
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Juvenile Gray Tree Frog (Dryophytes versicolor)
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Two-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma means)
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Juvenile Carolina Anole (Anolis carolinensis)
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We also met this Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) who was part of the collection (not the Asian turtle part, obviously). He was unique because much of his skin was pink and his eyes were very light and bright, without the pigment that forms a cross that snappers usually have.
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And just a small selection of some of the turtles we met that weren't native.

Snake neck turtle (they had a few species and I can't remember which one this was specifically. Possibly Rote Island but if someone recognizes it as something else let me know)
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Pig-nosed or Fly River turtle (Carettochelys insculpta)
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Burmese Peacock Soft-shell Turtle (Nilssonia formosa)
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