Read Homestead Wildlife
| Birds | Arachnids | Insects | Mammals |
This is a baby Cooper's Hawk that we rescued...by carefully, at Wade's peril, climbing a ladder with the bird then placing it back in its nest. The Cooper's Hawk is recently downgraded from the endangered species list to the threatened list.
Barn owl (before the barn demolition, of course)
Little screech owl in our attic. He makes the strangest little birdy sound. No hooting for him.
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This "little" guy decided to weave a web right in the path to the cars. I nearly wet myself when I found this spider right in front of my face! She stayed with us for about 5 days.
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I was especially anxious when I saw her abdomen...too
similar to the black widow.
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I don't even remember where we found this miniscule arachnid. The geeks at the insect Yahoo! group identified this as a pseudoscorpion. They normally live in the tropics, but can live in our area too.
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While driving past a tree one day, I saw something strange on a trunk. Imagine my surprise to see these two mammoths mating. With a wingspan of 5 to 6 inches, the cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia) is the largest North American moth, and commonly referred to as silkworm moths. They apparently mate for an entire day, lay their eggs, then go off to die. How depressing is that? And stay they did...all day...despite the fact that I mowed all around that tree. By the way, that's a quarter for size comparison.
Here's a camera phone picture of them mating. The female is on the right with its bulbous abdomen.
Mink. Yes, I typed that right. A mink. Who'd a thunk? We don't even live near water.
No, deer aren't unique, but how often do you get to see a pair in your back yard?
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These are, as of yet, unidentified. Any clues?
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