With the craziness over the past several days, both in the U.S. and on the world front, my poor heart can not take much more so we’re gonna focus on strictly sweet things today from around our ‘hood.
Dr. Dolittle’s got nuthin’ on us, we have more of our fair share of Mother Nature in the heart of the Mile High City. The other night while walking Sam, we ran into this little guy. I swear Sam did a triple-take when this little fella moved. He watched us for a steady 5 minutes, while Sam’s tail never stopped wagging. While it’s not unusual to see raccoons scampering down the storm sewers, I hadn’t seen any for a while so this was a welcome treat. There has been so much new construction of multi-family housing projects here that it probably has the local ani-pals as wigged-out as us uprights with all the congestion and non-stop traffic noise. It makes me long for simpler times and many more masked faces.
We’ve had all manner of fur-critters in the ‘hood. From mule deer stopping by to nosh on the salad bar otherwise known as my lupine garden, to beautiful foxes who frolicked under my bedroom window in the dead of a cold winter night. We’ve seen a horned owl and a pair of falcons in the pre-dawn morning along our walks and especially given the gawd-awful events of the past week or so, a far more welcomed sight.
Last Friday evening we encountered a bunny who caused Sam to stand up straight as if his low-rider mechanism was engaged and raised. He did a double-take and then tried to quickly dash after the bunny. Luckily I was prepared for the “rip-out the shoulder maneuver” he tried to employ and luckily managed to maintain my upright status. Sam looked at me like I’d just kicked his little sister. “Come on….mom….why won’t you let me go play with the cute bunny?” Oh wait, maybe because there’s no way he could ever catch him? Just thinking out loud.
Do you have wildlife encounters around your neighborhood?
Live, love, bark! <3
Bah ha ha, the rip out the shoulder move. Yes, I know that well. You know the wild life I have around our place. Well a couple of weeks ago hubby was raking leaves when something moved and he got the BEST photo of it. One of these days, I’m going to post about it.
I love seeing the various wildlife around me. Did you see my Facebook post the day I saw the bear? I was tickled pink.
Yes, I DID see that bear pic on FB. Truly amazing! Looking forward to seeing a post on the hub’s encounter and pic. 😊
Raccoons, bunnies and foxes…. wow… I am thrillled to read about them as regular viistors in your neighborhood… I live in a quite urban place… even though in the suburbs, so not a strict city… Regardless, It is obviously the urban type… so I have never been able to see such amazing creatures close to my place…
Loved your post… I hope that Sam can make new friends one of these days…. love and best wishes. Aquileana 🙂
Thanks for dropping by. Yes, it is hard to believe we’re just 3 miles from the center of town. 😯
I love places that manage to get away from dizzy urban noise, and they remain not that far away from towns at the same time… Cheers. Aquileana 😊
It’s wild when they have both! Ciao ღ
The only wildlife I’ve seen around here have been our resident tree rats and the birdies.
Ah yes the ubiquitous tree rat. They’re like locusts here!
Here too. 🙃
I love seeing your city based wildlife! That’s really neat! Now as for the bunnies, how do you know Sam can’t catch them if you don’t let him try? Just kidding, I don’t let the poodles try either….but they really want to!
He has a high prey drive so best for all concerned not to go crashing through someone’s yard. We love watching the wildlife too! Helps balance the crazy of the city. 🙂 Happy Sunday!
I used to have 2 raccoons as pets they were so much fun.
Whoa, you’re one brave girl!
Out in the county, in a suburb of Chattanooga, TN. One early evening this week I was looking out the front window and saw 3 crows as big as the ones in Oz, along with a brown squirrel smaller than the crows. Then 2 hawks flew in from trees on the other side of the driveway, making a low swoop over the crows, and perched in a tree a few yards away. Thankfully, we left the coyotes behind when we moved farther out from town. Isn’t that ironic?
We have wild life in our hood also. Our dog, Mattie, doesn’t even try for the bunnies–she has figured out they are faster than she is. She got into an argument with a raccoon in her younger years and came out on top but we discourage any more close encounters. We also have a large owl that lives in a tree in our front yard; haven’t seen any foxes but hear and see the coyotes a lot–especially at night when a siren sets them off. We had a special blessing–a young duck made her nest beside a large flower pot outside our front door. She had three eggs and had got used to me being near because I was the pot waterer, but I discouraged anyone else from getting too close and the foliage near the pot hid her well. In just about a month, I looked out early on Sunday morning and she came out of her nest, followed by two ducklings. They looked like fuzzy tennis balls with tiny legs. When she walked down our front walk, I followed her quietly from a distance as they walked the block towards the tall grass by Cherry Creek. I have looked for them every morning on our walk but have never seen them since. The ducklings should have fledged by now so they could have flown away to anywhere. It will be interesting to see if she comes back to her flower pot next year to lay eggs.
Oh gosh, baby ducklings are the sweetest to watch! Hope they are all ok. Coyotes could be a threat.
We had a groundhog in the yard the other day, a few deer outside of the fence eating my sunflowers and 2 mice in the house 🙁
😉 A house mouse? Love it! Happy weekend.
For a city you sure do get a lot of wildlife, which is really nice. I do hope all that construction doesn’t force the animals to leave, that really would be a shame. purrs ERin
It IS hard to believe we’re just 3 miles from downtown Denver! We hope the wildlife stays in the hood, too! ღ
Lol…’rip-out the shoulder manouvre’…that is so funny
Only when you’re not on that end of the leash! ☺️
I know 😉😉
Bloody ‘coon got Portia’s butt on Sunday. Not quite sure how it happened….better than a bobcat or a coyote I suppose.
Yikes! Those raccoons scare me-they’re not afraid of anything around here! Hope she’s well on the mend.
Great shots! Had lots of wildlife encounters in my Colorado days…some really cool, some kind of odd. Here’s one of the odd ones. Saw a lump under the mulch of one of my flower beds. Brushed it off and saw feathers…then yelped and got my husband. Some critter had very neatly and carefully buried an entire intact female duck. Cougar, fox, coyote? Who knows, we had ’em all! I didn’t want it sitting around until the next garbage pickup so we took it to a dumpster at an office park on Ward Road. 😀
You had Wild Kingdom going on there!
Your Pals,
Murphy & Stanley
Just saw two rabbits this morning! We have “coons” too, but I don’t love them, they are mean buggers. I wouldn’t be thrilled with a fox either….we do have coyote, thankfully I have never seen one and don’t want to!
We have coyotes too but I’ve never been able to photograph one-they are way too wily and quick.
Wiley coyote, bwahaha!
I would love to see a Fox or Deer this close up!
Before we moved to our new home we regularly had bunnies nesting in our back yard. This was wonderful for my curious kiddos- baby bunnies are Adorable!! Not as great because our Matipoo Millie wanted to dig them up at every opportunity! You’ve never seen such creative barricades around a bunny nest…
Sara
Nothing quite like a “quafty wabbit!”
Not just in the neighborhood, but the back yard. There are about five rabbit nests, birds nesting in cactus and visitors that are able to get over the six foot high block fence (and not just birds). The coyotes sometimes leave a poop present on the front porch.
Eek…not your average drop-in by a friendly critter, now is it?
We have TONS of skunk and raccoons in the neighborhood this year!
Yikes, skunks? Eek!
oy the bunnies! Cole did nearly pull me off my pins this summer in CT. Here he is, fighting cancer and 14 years old, yanking me to catch a bunny. He has no respect for us as hunters for sure. He probably tells his friends he has to feed US. LeeAnna
He’s a poodle, of course he thinks he feeds you! Too funny. Love that pup’s spirit!
Oh my piggy heavens! You have a walking zoo with your encounters of wildlife – I love it. So many new anipal friends to meet and greet. Here, let’s see there are pooches and kitties in the hood. In my magical backyard, I have frogs, bunches of squirrels, wild rabbits, crickets, snakes from the creek, an occasional deer and I’ve heard my Bigfoot but I haven’t seen him lately. There you go. Wanna come play with me? Snorts and oinks. XOXO – Bacon
Whoa, Bacon…looks like you have a zoo too…in more ways than one. I can’t even imagine how Sam would react to a frog!
Oh my friends – they are so LOUD at night and croak me to sleep with their orchestra. I think Sam would have a ball for sure! XOXO – Bacon
Once upon a time we did, but not any more. When I took Chienne out walking more often than not we would come across a couple of Kangaroos and, occasionally the odd Emu. Not any more because the land was bought by a developer and fenced off and what was once open land, is now housing development. There are many new houses and although there is still a lot of land he area owned by the developer is fenced- so no more animals and I have to change my route. Mind you with the end of the mining boom and the possible collapse of the steelworks, housing has slowed down.
We don’t have anything quite that exotic in our ‘hood and are kind of jealous. 😉
Your wildlife looks like much more fun than ours! Around here sometimes cats hide under cars and try to kill me when I walk by. They’re NOT cute.
Love and licks,
Cupcake
Ah yes, those cats…what’s a different kind of wildlife for us too. Stay safe, Cupcake. 🙂
we have a lot of rabbits and pigeons… that attracts birds of prey and foxes … I’m not so happy with this wildlife around us, we are on the way to bring rabies back to our area :o(