OT Raptors in Suburbia (Graphic in a natural way)

[RFC]

I live in a Steven Spielburg suburb of Scottsdale surrounded by ever diminishing horse ranches and desert.

I love the fact that we still have a steady presence of desert wildlife, including Javelina, Coyotes, Bobcats, and raptors (Harris's Hawk, Redtail Hawk, Owls) and I've even had a juvenile Bald Eagle land within 15 feet of me.

I feed the Quail and doves in my backyard, and about twice a week find something like this. Probably a Harris's Hawk since they are known to pluck their prey on the kill site.

Wildlife in your neighborhood?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b384/RCopple/image1_zpswflce237.jpeg (http://s23.photobucket.com/user/RCopple/media/image1_zpswflce237.jpeg.html)

[dave thompson]

Iguanas in our palapa and cows on our beach.

[Dead Man]

Saw a coyote nervously darting around the Alameda neighborhood in inner NE Portland, yesterday... was kind of a trip. There's nothing "wildernessy," not even big parks or natural spaces, for many miles around there

But I don't live in Alameda. Nor even Portland. I live in Saint ｷｷｷｷing Helens... and though the entire town is barely 4 square miles and surrounded on all sides by country, the stray & feral cats kill or keep at bay all other forms of life. Except tweekers wobbling around on Walmart MTBs.. we also have those.

[Seramount]

wildlife...?

just the typical suburban critters...squirrels, mice, rats, and the occasional possum and raccoon.

boring avifauna for the most part. sparrows, grackles, starlings, mourning doves (absolutely hate these bastards, they stay up all night long making annoying cooing noises and fluttering their wings incessantly).

for color, eastern blue jays and cardinals...for roadkill cleanup, turkey and black vultures. my favorites are a couple of species of hummingbirds that grace the backyard from time to time.

a few raptors...red-tailed hawks, kestrels, and my neighbor has some eastern screech owls that nest in a dead tree.

was leaving to go to work recently and a large RTH was standing in the grass next to my car casually disemboweling some kind of rodent. watched it for several minutes, after consuming its breakfast, it preened a bit, and took wing.

not exactly Wild Kingdom action, but still cool...

[rccardr]

Seen a couple coyotes the last several years, some in residential neighborhoods, others in a park settin. Plenty of foxes.

Local hawks-I've been told Red Tails- like to snatch frogs out of our fish pond in the back yard.

[DHallerman]

A few summers ago (ah, summer!), two turkey vultures spent about an hour on the roof opposite our home in the lower Hudson Valley.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24440195/turkey_vultures.jpg

[gdw]

We live by the city open space and have fox, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, and bear wandering into the neighborhood quite often. The pictures of the bobcat were taken by one of my neighbors last week.

[Tandem Rider]

We had a wildcat/Mountain lion living in the 'hood about 3 years ago, knocked the heck out of the deer population. I have no pics, but he was sighted several times, once by a friend of mine who did get a phone pic. The TR salad bar was plentiful then, but the population is recovering so the hostas are in danger.

We currently have 2 Bald Eagles nesting in a tree about 100 yards from where I sit now. The mating ritual was AMAZING to see, I was looking around for Marlin Perkins.

Had a Red Tailed Hawk nest in the tree in front of our house last year. Mrs TR got to see the little ones get get kicked out of the nest, was very cool, she said there was lots of screaming. Don't see any many rabbits though, can't figure that out...

During the warmer months we have tons, well, maybe only 1 ton (seriously), of turkey vultures at the spillway for the manmade lake near our house. On a ride early in the morning you can see them sitting on the rocks stretching their wings out to catch the sun and warm up. After a consistent week or two of riding by they won't even fly away.

I will miss this place when we move.

[zmudshark]

You may want to rethink having a bird feeder, RFC. The roof rats love bird feeders.

I'm close to a wash, plenty of Cooper's, Harris's and Great Horned Owls, even an occasional Baldy. I've even seen Osprey in the Mtn Preserve.

[Dead Man]

Actually, we do get a crap load of hummingbirds, in the spring and summer... wife has some giant vividly red flowered shrub thing that attracts them, plus does hummingbird nectar feeders... so it's super hummy out on the veranda on sunny days

I'll see if I can dig out pics. I've never seen so many hummingbirds in one place in my life

[pitonpat]

Late this Fall, nearing home on a typical Sunday ride, I noticed something white in a creek bed next to the road. Ever the curious type I couldn't resist stopping to investigate. Turned out to be the upturned, empty shell from a snapping turtle! Probably picked clean by a raccoon, the internal structure was something I had never seen before. My size 10 shoe gives an idea of scale!

[OtayBW]

Found this not-so-little lady lying on my kitchen floor a couple of years ago. She must have been in a hard dive after some prey and then came in horizontal through a double pane casement window. She hit the far wall in the back of the kitchen and broke her neck. A real shame, but quite a striking creature seeing her up close like that.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j42/zelmo_2006/Hawk_0001.jpg (http://s77.photobucket.com/user/zelmo_2006/media/Hawk_0001.jpg.html)

[MattTuck]

Very cool pics in this thread. It is a reminder that we are, for the most part, actually living IN an ecosystem. I think people sometimes forget that, and think that nature stops at the backyard fence.

That middle picture of the bobcat makes it look like it is indoors, but I think that is just an optical illusion due to the framing of the deck behind it.

[Davist]

We get (too many) deer, but also red fox, turkey vultures, red tailed (mostly) and other hawks (wish I knew the names of them, had a nesting pair of red tails in our back yard), many snapping turtles.. North of Phila city limits by about 5 miles, by the way.

[GregL]

This beauty keeps our backyard squirrel and pigeon populations in check

[gdw]

"That middle picture of the bobcat makes it look like it is indoors, but I think that is just an optical illusion due to the framing of the deck behind it."

Their house is unique and has decks and patios encircling it. The bobcat was on a back deck looking for their cat.

[CaptStash]

We live on Puget Sound right next door to Discovery Park. Coyote here are rare, but there are multiple Bald Eagle pairs in the 'hood, and racoons and owls are plentiful in the park. It's especially fun to watch the eagles hunt mice in the meadows.

CaptStash....