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Any clue what kind of animal leaves a paw print like this? I didn’t think anything above the size of a rat could make it under the front porch. That print is probably about an inch. I’m pretty sure it is new. Big ground squirrel? It would have to be one huge rat to have toe pads that big. It’s got a tiny thumb smudge when I turn off the bathroom light and peer out at it from on top of a step ladder. Maybe a regular ol’ grey squirrel, watchin’ me poop. Surprising, since I haven’t seen any grey squirrels in this yard. I hear a ridiculous amount of diurnal owl calls out here. And there a plenty of hawks. Bored fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 4, 2023 |
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Mar 4, 2023 21:21
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My friend was out clearing trails in the woods on her property and found a skull. It took a few minutes of googling to discover that it was a raccoon skull. I also learned that opossum skulls appear to have sagital crests to attach jaw muscles to for chewing tough things, kind of like gorillas, although they may not be called sagital crests when not gorillas. Anyway, my friend’s chihuahua would really like me to give her the skull, please. I did not take the picture with a potato, but with a refurbished iPad. Sorry. I’ll get better ones with my phone since the nasal cartilage is visible and looks as complex as the nasal cavities I’ve seen on dog skulls in videos talking about dogs’ scenting abilities (I feel like I worded that wrong).      Pretty sure something ate its nose when it was freshly dead since the front of its mouth is also missing. Bored fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 20:47
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my cat is norris posted:^^^^ Lol. Checked that. Not a raccoon. I’m fairly confident it is a squirrel.
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Mar 7, 2023 21:31
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this rules
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BonHair posted:Third guy was in my mom's garden and gave zero fucks about me or the cat approaching. He knows what he's got. He looks very upset that you are leaving.
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Apr 10, 2023 17:11
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poverty goat posted:i found a friend in the woods Eastern box turtle, according to Google, though I haven’t checked which subspecies under that heading. Also, tree frogs are waking up! This guy (or girl) announced its presence as soon as it crawled out of its hidey-hole yesterday.  I didn’t have my phone on me while it was singing, so no inflated neck sack. It stopped singing almost immediately. Just wanted to let all the other tree frogs know that it was ready and available. Here it is today, hanging on the windows because the inside light is on, which attracts bugs:  Its waist is not actually that small, the parts that aren’t suctioned to the glass just got obscured by the reflection on my side. This is how they sing (not my video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuw022MSGwA Their camouflage is pretty impressive. One at my mom’s house somehow carried off the teal and grey patina of the old metal swing it was hunting on one day.
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Apr 15, 2023 04:14
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runchild posted:
Folding door spider? I accidentally flooded the den of one while house-sitting (I was cleaning the chicken water tanks) and she came running out while carrying her egg sac, started to get swept away with the water but jumped onto the first semi-dry thing she went past, which happened to be a friendly chihuahua’s nose. She, lady spider, flailed for a few seconds there on the dog’s snout, like,”oh gross! Get it off of me!” before leaping down to dry land while waiting for the rivulet of water to absorb into the ground so that she could retrieve her babies. I’m betting it would have hurt Pep, the chihuahua, if she had bitten him, but she was quite nice, imo. Big fangs. I felt pretty bad about flooding her den.
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Apr 15, 2023 22:22
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runchild posted:Hmmm, I don’t think so. Looks like folding door spiders have a really chitinous-looking cephalothorax, and that wasn’t the case with mine. My best guess is a wolf spider of some sort, they’re pretty common around here. My bad. I don’t believe they have the stripes yours has either. That’s what I get for looking at pictures with my phone dimmed down and color balance shifted. Pretty dumb if I’m gonna try to identify a species.
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Apr 17, 2023 18:59
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Killingyouguy! posted:One time I went to look at a frog and it got spooked and leapt directly onto my face The tree frogs around my mom’s house will do this. I’ll be trying to move them away from the edge of the doors so that I do not crush them to death when I close the door because they have tried to hide from me where the door meets the door frame in the split second it was open. Geckos in Texas are also really fond of this form of suicide. It’s awful and I hate it.
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Apr 18, 2023 19:04
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Here’s a  (if you are a beetle) picture of these awful looking beetles mating. They are very clumsy and all look like pregnant females. They were still going at it 5 minutes later.
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Apr 29, 2023 05:29
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Captain Invictus posted:blister beetles, no touchie The orkin website says some interesting things about them. Also some worrying things, like that they can poison livestock? I figured that they are disgusting looking, but probably beneficial. Looks like i was incorrect.
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Apr 30, 2023 20:07
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Just watched a tiny black wolf spider make a break for it while carrying the cellar spider it killed. Here’s hoping it is just as effective when killing recluses. Cellar spiders are bros, so I was kinda sad to see it as wolf spider take-away. But they also don’t appear to eat other spiders, and recluse bites suck. I think there are also a few ant mimics crawling around down here. Hummingbirds have returned to the yard, but refuse to pose for a picture. The group out here seems to be louder with their battle “pew-pew” sounds, but they haven’t introduce themselves like the ones at my mom’s house did. Every new hummingbird that discovered the feeder at my mom’s house last year would hover in front of us chirping quietly until we noticed. Also, hummingbird facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Biagyb7AcK8 Hah! Got some pictures over the shoulder. They’re poo poo pictures.   I just want to point out, on the second one, there is nothing to perch on. It is still hovering. My phone really hates hummingbirds. Also not my truck. I live in the basement of a friend’s house. Bored fucked around with this message at 13:41 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 08:32
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sexy tiger boobs posted:Yeah I thought that's why they have those crazy long legs, for wrapping up spiders without taking a bite. You are both correct. I just looked it up. I’ve never seen them eating other spiders, only gnats, so just assumed. There are lots of cellar spiders down there. Hopefully black wolf spider will start going after recluses anyway and stop going after the cellar spiders.
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May 5, 2023 21:41
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MagpieConcept posted:
I wanted to see what those shoulder pads are, since they are super prominent. I think those are parotid glands? We have lots of people here who are far more knowledgeable about amphibians than I am. I followed the link from the Western toad to the California subspecies and thought this was funny. quote:The California toad breeds from January to July, with later spawning occurring at higher elevations. Many populations are aggregation breeders that come to suitable marsh or pond spawning sites in large numbers. Here males recognize females through random amplexus. Eggs number over 16,000 per female and are laid in strings in shallow water.[7]
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May 8, 2023 02:17
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:
Tell them to stop climbing into clothing that is hung up. I’ve had to be on antibiotics multiple times to clear up recluse bites that appear to be going necrotic. Also, tell them to stop biting people that accidentally brush a blade of grass next to the jogging trail in this area, cause I actually have a easily treatable reaction to their bites instead of requiring skin grafts like the joggers that periodically get bit. gently caress brown recluses. If they did their own thing like the rest of the spiders, including staying out of my bed and clothes, I’d be fine with them. But they do not. Also, the black spider that killed a cellar spider was, in turn, killed by a cellar spider a few feet away from the original the following night. I saw it in the embrace of the victorious cellar spider. RIP feisty black spider. Thank you for convincing fellow goons to teach me more science. 2 spiders followed me in from the little alcove by my door to the outside yesterday. One was a crab shaped one that was on the door frame to the bathroom last I saw it. One was a tiny jumping spider. Some itty bitty beetle also rambled in while I was opening the door to see if the spiders would like to go back out. Little jumping spider pounced, then jumped back like,”oops, I didn’t mean to jump on that.” I’m guessing it is a baby. I haven’t seen it since, but it blends into almost everything pretty well, so I’m hoping it’s okay. Edit: Tried getting a decent picture without scaring the frog, but did not succeed.  I think it is the same one that came out of rumination in my little alcove since that’s, like, max size for gray tree frogs. Earlier in the night, the chihuahua was refusing to come in because she had to bark at the tree frog, even though she could not determine where it was singing. I think all the other tree frogs are actually in the trees. This one hangs out by still water and sings, so I think it is probably a lady. Bored fucked around with this message at 02:17 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 02:03
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I spotted crab-looking spider and took it back outside. I finally looked up what the crab-looking spiders are and they are “crab spiders”. Also, they changed color to match their surroundings, which is neat. This one has started to go lighter than it was when it originally came inside. I put it by the door, since that is usually where I saw it hunting at night. It sidled into a hole in the foundation to good behind some rocks. It is supposed to be hanging out on flowers, according to the article I found about them changing colors, so I think putting this one outside was probably the right move. https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine-archive/node/1001 Edit: oh, mine is not the one that makes color changes for camouflage. But spiders apparently also change color based on diet. This article has a very fashionable common house spider. https://spidersinohio.net/color-shifts/ Bored fucked around with this message at 22:04 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 21:55
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 skink.It is a very curious skink. I spotted it earlier having a staring match with the cat. Edit: actually, I think it was a bigger skink staring at the cat. They don’t have blue tails right now, but I don’t know if that will change. They currently have black tails, if the first skunk is anything to go by. Also, if they are prairie skinks, today might be skink orgy day and poking their heads out might be them politely saying,”a little privacy, please.” That does sound super cute. \/\/\/\/ Bored fucked around with this message at 22:36 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 22:10
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So there were two crab spiders. 1 has gone back outside. But I don’t know if this one originally came from outside. I think crab spiders are all ambush hunters who just chill on plants. Anyway, it skittered into its hide hole at dawn. I had to close the door because that cat kept being all,”Whacha doing’?”
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May 13, 2023 12:05
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poverty goat posted:i never expected to get gifts from the squirrels. but my favorite one just ran up to me w/ a bone and dropped it in front of me to ask for a treat Like, crows do that for people who feed them regularly because they have an idea of “fair trade,” iirc. I would not have expected a squirrel to do that either. I have a very difficult time reading squirrels, though. Last night a bunch of clicking frogs were gathered around the pond. I swear it sounded like there was a beatnik club out there. This sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLL2mjTw2UU But a bunch surrounding a decent sized pond.
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May 17, 2023 06:49
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Hummingbirds are doing tons of mating displays and aerial dogfights. One of the girls just came to the middle of the patio to see what I was up to. The owner of the house put out a bowl of sugar water for bees so that they leave the hummingbird feeders alone. Ants have discovered the bee water. I watched the male hummingbird go over, grab an ant snack, then proceed to the hummingbird feeder. It’s a one-stop hummingbird shop, here.
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May 17, 2023 21:39
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McGavin posted:Sounds like more of an orgy than a convention. They are using the word “convention” because they are polite.* I used the words “rat snake party” when telling my mom that it looks like there’s a bunch of rat snakes getting together to mate in the rocks by her fish pond, cause my mom is a prude and becomes angry at any attempt at humor, especially if it is about anything having to do with bodily functions of anything. But I texted my friends about the super cute snakes gathering for a snake orgy. * I assume. Although maybe Scarodactyl thinks there were professional toad networking events being held and all the egg clusters were just a side effect of too much toad alcohol on toad karaoke night? I should go to bed Bored fucked around with this message at 10:48 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 10:41
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poverty goat posted:i think today's ticks are both lone star ticks, a nymph and an adult female Yeah. The person who lets me live in her basement is mad that I talked her into treating her dogs for ticks since a couple have obviously laid eggs (the ticks, not the dogs) in the house and I can’t sit anywhere upstairs without at least one tick climbing on me. The ticks are loving insane this year and I doubt all of the various diseases they can spread have been fully catalogued. And all of the ticks this year seem to be really digging in when they DO manage to latch on. Edit: previous to this year, I have had only 4 ticks latch onto me. I think I’ve had 4 or 5 actually latch on in the last few weeks, but I’ve found innumerable ones running around on me. I lived in the country growing up. The ticks are nuts this year. So far, they deer and dog ticks. I hate ticks so loving much. Bored fucked around with this message at 04:34 on May 23, 2023 |
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May 23, 2023 04:20
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  This is after a pair decided to have a foot from the floor of the patio. I think the cat is now hoping it happens again. Not technically my cat. I do not own this place and have been told he’s not allowed to come in. I also think the hummingbirds know he hangs out here. 
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May 25, 2023 02:22
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Enfys posted:nbd just a house full of ticks Yeah. It’s nuts. And she’s got at least a decade on me, so she doesn’t have the excuse of never having to worry about not making her pets in-miserable prior to the advent of frontline and advantage. Anyway, I watched this butterfly land a couple of feet away from the outdoor cat’s food dish, then circumnavigate around the dish to claim that piece of kibble for its queen and country. It has been there for, like, 20 minutes. It closes its wings every time I try to get closer for a better picture.  poverty goat posted:we've done it, we've found the thing worse than bedbugs Not as far as getting rid of the them without resorting to arson. I think all of them from the original batches (somewhere behind the couch was also infested at that time) are not dead, since you can sacrifice your dogs to the ticks once you have prevention on them. Ticks can’t breed when they’re dead. I’m waiting for her to be like,”See? Frontline doesn’t work!” On the big blue dog, since he is over 88 lbs, so there have been a few ticks on him. There may also be a new infestation in her bedroom in a few days since I found a very fat tick, that the dogs had killed, on the floor one morning. Possibly  because it is very gross, but They are dogs and therefore gross, and have discovered that super fat ticks walking around on the floor are full of delicious gravy. So, before they were treated, I’d find crushed ticks around the house with a dog or two cleaning up the mess. But those are the ones that lay eggs once they drop offIt chose a new kibble closer to me just now. 
Bored fucked around with this message at 00:28 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 28, 2023 23:50
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BetterLekNextTime posted:D'aww I love it when it seems that the wild animals we’re hanging out with are making an effort to try to be polite. My eastern screech owl buddy in Texas switched trees to poop farther away from me, then came back. She liked watching me play animal crossing on my phone. I had no clue North American owls came in Chibi size until she stood still long enough while stomping on a bug one night. Sure, there are videos of the various tiny species of owl, but I did not realize how tiny they were until I witnessed them. Edit: sorry for the double post Bored fucked around with this message at 00:45 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 00:43
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Blue heron who usually flies away as soon as it sees me. It flew away right after I took the picture. Pretty sure it’s been coming to that pond for 15 years.
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Jun 1, 2023 22:47
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 Lone Turkey in the yard.
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Jun 5, 2023 20:20
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poverty goat posted:skink There was a tick “questing” for a host on the porch cat’s water dish today. As soon as my shadow fell over the tick, it held its little front legs up. I grabbed it, took it inside to the sink, and burned it with my tiny butane torch. That one won’t be making any babies or spreading around any diseases. I’ll go sprinkle some diatomaceous earth around the porch. I’ve been meaning to, since the porch cat acts like sand fleas are biting him. I’ve advantaged him from my stash for my cats, but fleas have to bite for it to kill them.
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Jun 8, 2023 04:11
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I threw some stale saltines out for the raccoon in the area were dispose of stuff not fit for humans. The raccoon walked right past the saltines, on the way to see if there was any cat food left. It apparently enjoys the finer things in life. It didn’t make it to the patio where there was cat food because it noticed I was on the patio. That gave me time to throw some old sugar cookies over by the saltines.
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Jun 9, 2023 06:02
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blight rhino posted:looks like a study deck you got going on there I was just excited to see the Turkey in the yard.  I tried getting a decent picture of it when it was walking by the road, but it disappeared into a field by the time I got my camera open (nobody else was on the road). Just kind of slowly oozed on in while I fumbled with my phone.  Dickhead Turkey. This is why the flock doesn’t want him. He always fucks up photos.
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Jun 10, 2023 11:07
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 Porch cat decided he would like to return to the porch, after being a bathroom cat for a few days, after his attempt at diplomacy with a stray cat went poorly. This means all you can eat cat food has returned. It also wandered over to where the food jug used to sit, just in case.
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Jun 17, 2023 10:21
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BOOTY-ADE posted:Not just tiny lizards but other even tinier animals - meet Paedophryne amauensis Is that full grown or a frogling? Either way, is so tiny 
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Jun 22, 2023 02:56
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PainterofCrap posted:I have preserved a couple bald-faced hornet’s nests for this very reason: They’re art. I have a painted with acrylic ink, then epoxied paper wasp nest nest for this reason. I have no clue what the gently caress I’m going to do with it aside from having it. But it’s awesome. The wasps that made it were also pretty cool about me going outside and smoking right next to them. I also found out that paper wasps like air conditioning, that summer, since I would try to have only the screen closed when I was working on smelly stuff at night, and a lot of the wasps would head over to the screen to sleep, which is likely how the few that I had to catch to throw back outside got in. Attaching images is not currently working correctly.
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Jun 24, 2023 01:01
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Damnit. iApp is still using url tags instead of letting me attach images. Let’s see if imgbb works.  Looks like it has already gone fishing again.
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Jun 27, 2023 06:11
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wheatpuppy posted:My house this year is just swarming with spiders, none of which I am capable of photographing clearly. Yeah. I have a bunch of non-web spinning spiders here, which is fine by me since according to my reading, they will eat ticks. Also a bunch of cellar spiders, but ticks don’t generally amble around in cellar spider range. I’m in the basement and have gotten a tick by walking out the basement door to a little patio outside, so i started getting all paranoid that they would wander and infest me while i sleep. I really, really hate ticks. The spiders aren’t out where I can see them right now.  One of the big wolf spiders was apparently in my robe the other night since I brushed something tickling my off and realized it was a wolf spider when i heard something hit the ground. It was fine. Nice guys, these wolf spiders. From a quick Google, I think all of the big brown ones are “rabid wolf spiders,” which is a bad-rear end name for a wolf spider that doesn’t bite humans without a lot of provocation.I don’t know what the little, black chitinous wolf spider are. post="532875359"] It totally is. I lived in a place in western Oregon once that had seriously tons of these little mutant dudes. I felt sorry for them but also kind of proud that they kept chugging along with extra legs and poo poo. [/quote] The extra legs are usually caused by parasites during development. Although there are also tons of other mutations amphibians get during development from other poor water conditions. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502534/reason-some-frogs-grow-extra-legs Bored fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2023 10:03
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Dillbag posted:Is this a coyote call? It's very spoopy. I live here. I can’t get the link to the sound to play on my phone, even on a different browser .
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Jul 1, 2023 18:56
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Big Aggie is on the warpath today. This is after she’s chased off the male. He came back. He is actually closer and those feeders are the same size. I think he is literally half her size.  I’m pretty sure she kicked his rear end right at the beginning of the season, so he doesn’t even try to dance for her. Although he does dance frequently for all of the other ladies when Big Aggie allows them to eat. Between Big Aggie and myself, the other girl hummingbirds have correctly identified Big Aggie as the greater threat, so they eat on the sides of the feeders closer to me when she’s being especially territorial. Bored fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 2, 2023 |
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Jul 2, 2023 23:33
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Yay! One of the big wolf spiders was hanging out in my bag pile when I walked over to grab them. Now I have a decent picture of one. It was slow-mo walking while I was taking the picture, but didn’t put the super speed they usually have on.
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Jul 4, 2023 05:25
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I just watched the male hummingbird chase wasp away from the feeder. At friends houses, I’ve witnessed hummingbirds lining up behind the wasps. This guy is tough (just not tougher than Big Aggie).
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Jul 6, 2023 22:03
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The skink eggs, that my housemate found while gardening and recovered, have hatched. But at least one of them every time I held up my phone to take a picture. This one let me take the picture, but ran away when I told it it was cute.
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Jul 7, 2023 20:31
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I was sitting outside on the porch and tiny man hummingbird was flying past, stopped at the stairs to the porch, then came hovering straight toward me like he was having a stroll. He flew off when I shifted to make sure the porch swing didn’t swing toward him and scare him off. Oops. He did come back after getting getting a few more drinks to chase some lady hummingbirds, and perch on the feeder, though, which they usually don’t do. The ones at my moms house would come up behind us to hover over our shoulders. They seemed to be curious about what we were looking at, regardless of if it was a book or a tablet.
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Jul 11, 2023 01:49
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