I live in rural SW Missouri where it’s common to see wild animals. I absolutely love it! I see raccoons, opossums, and skunks almost daily. I’ve seen the usual black skunks with white stripes but also completely white skunks!
Image by BowmanStudios from Pixabay
I’ve seen bats at night and once a bat got in our house. I had gone to bed and kept hearing what sounded like a big moth fluttering about. I turned on the light, and was shocked to see it was a little bat! He was hanging from the ceiling since I turned on the light. I woke up my son because someone had to witness this! I got a small waste basket, emptied it, stood up on the bed, and carefully placed the waste basket over the bat. Then I took a cookie sheet and carefully and slowly moved it across the top of the wastebasket. Then my son and I took the little bat outside and released him. I bet he was thankful!
Years ago, I was coming home from work and saw what I first thought was a big dog. As I got closer, I realized it was a young bear! I figured his mama was nearby but I didn’t see her. I haven’t seen a bear since then.
Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay
I’ve most recently seen a bobcat and my cats saw it, too! Thankfully, my furbabies have an enclosure to keep them safe. I think the bobcat jumped on top of the enclosure because there were indentations in the wire, like footprints.
I’ve seen red foxes, coyotes, and mountain lions. The red foxes are beautiful! We have an overabundance of squirrels, armadillos, rabbits, and deer! People have told me about feral pigs and I may have heard them in the woods late at night a time or two, but I can’t be sure. I have yet to see one! I’ve seen moles, voles, groundhogs, chipmunks, gophers, weasels, and even a flying squirrel! It’s amazing! I can’t forget about box turtles, snapping turtles, skinks, frogs, toads, and different species of snakes!
Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com
I can’t forget about birds! I’ve seen pigeons, wild turkeys, mourning doves, owls, roadrunners, starlings, herons, egrets, and several species of woodpeckers including pileated woodpeckers. The most awesome of the birds are birds of prey. I can’t even count how many species of hawks I’ve seen over the years. I’ve even seen bald eagles!
Image by Kathy Büscher from Pixabay
I got my love of nature and wildlife from my dad. He taught me to respect, watch, and learn instead of disturbing or killing. Do you live in an area where you see wildlife?
Being Aunt Debbie 
Oh dear, you sure have tons of critters over in your neck of the woods my friend. I’m not sure I’d be okay with a bat in my house but, I wouldn’t hurt it either. As I’ve gotten older I respect more and more the animals that are around my neighborhood. Since I live very close to the mountain I see a lot of coyotes and foxes on my way to work. I’ve also spotted a mountain lion perched on a hill staring down at something. What it was I can’t say, but dang that lion was pretty huge if you ask me. I’m not okay with snakes, I hate them and until now haven’t seen any near where I live. But since I started working at my current university, I’ve encountered chickens crossing the road near our office (no pun intended, lol.) I’ve see goats and sheet almost every day and of course the equine research facility is right in back of our office so I see and go talk to the horses every chance I get. Well, when they’re out by this side of the field that is. They tend to stay near the barn but sometimes they run over to the fence that separates our section of land from theirs because I have apples or carrots. They are such majestic animals, and I have never been so close to so many animals in my life until I started working here. I also go pet the calves when they are next door at the animal disease prevention lab too.
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I’ve always been a bit scared of horses, why I can only speculate. Could be because I have never been around them, or that they are such huge animals, but I think it was because my mother forced me to get on a pony when I was 3 or 4 and it scared me so bad I think I wet myself. My mother was like that; she’d make me do something because SHE wanted me to do it. It didn’t matter how I felt about it.
Mountain Lions are just as majestic to me as the bald eagle is! I see chickens in the road all of the time. People complain because their chickens get run over! What do they expect? Chickens aren’t smart enough to stay out of the road! Obviously, some people aren’t smart enough to keep their chickens in pens, ffs. LOL.
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Deb, we have bobcats, opossums, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, vermin and coyotes running up and down our suburban streets and through our yards. In the summertime, we get dragonflies around our backyard pond orange and blue and sometimes a teal color. We also have cardinals and blue jays (they’re mean!) as well as grackles and blackbirds. I’ve seen a woodpecker once. Heard it before I saw it! We once had a swarm of bees hanging from our front tree. David was mowing the front yard and damned near ran into it. I think it was migrating to some other place. Glad they weren’t the killer variety. They eventually moved on. The bobcats and coyotes use the sewer system much like a highway or so I’ve been told. Authorities in our town tend to not get worked up about it when they get a call about wildlife in the area. We’ve probably lost a furbaby or two to the Circle of Life. No more. We only have Millie cat left of our felines, and she is an indoor cat only! About a stone’s throw away, is a working farm and they have llamas that guard the cows. What is happening in our neighborhood at the moment are thieves. Our next door neighbor got her brand new SUV stolen from her driveway in broad daylight on the 30th! I sometimes think of the bobcats and coyotes in our area as brazen. But they’ve never been as brazen as the two-legged variety. Your area sounds lovely! I don’t know what a vole or a skink is, but it will be something new for me to learn today! Happy New Year, Deb! Mona
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Unfortunately, we are taking over much of the land that once belonged to wildlife. They have less and less land to roam. You’re right about humans. They are more brazen than any wild animal.
Sounds like you have a lovely backyard for birds and dragonflies! I can’t even remember all the species of birds we’ve seen! Cardinals, orioles, blue jays, and phoebes….so many!
A vole looks like a hamster. Skinks are little shiny, brightly colored lizards.
Happy New Year!
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So many animals! I have seen deer, foxes, opossum, and the usual little wildlife (rabbits, squirrels, and raccoons). Of course there are farm animals you see off the road passing by in the country. I love animals… I too had a bat in the house (twice) and released it back outside. Only thing I would really freak out about was if a snake showed up in (or near) my house… I would be calling animal control for that one. Yikes!
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We’ve had a snake in the house twice. There are so many cracks and crevices in this old house, they can come up from under the house. The good thing is that the snakes that were in the house were just rat (black) snakes and were harmless, other than scaring the shit out of us. Lol. I’m not so much afraid of them as I am startled! I love animals too! If I were able-bodied, I think I’d like to turn our property into an animal sanctuary!
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Glad those snakes were harmless!
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Me, too!
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Wow, Deb, you have alot of wildlife in your area. Thankfully we don’t have anything bigger than a coyote here. We have alot of foxes both red and silver skunks, raccoons, squirrels and chipmunks. We also have weasels and had one in our house a few years ago. I was terrified of it the same as if it was a rat or mouse. It finally found its way out when we left the back door open.
Years ago I had a bat in my house too. I woke up to a note on my husband’s pillow telling me there was a bat in the house and he had to go to work. Between my kids and I, we caught it but it had a broken wing and our cat put him out of his misery unbeknownst to me until the kids told me about it. You can imagine what I was thinking about my husband for leaving me with this to deal with on my own (and asleep). One of many reasons we are divorced today lol.
I would be so scared to have large cats and bears roaming the woods around me but probably just because I’ve never had to deal with it. Thanks for this walk in nature. Take care,
Roze
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Aww, poor little bat. Shame on your ex for leaving you to deal with it. Big wild animals can be terrifying! We don’t see too many big cats, only occasionally and I’ve never seen a bear close to the house.
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