Plants and Animals in our Yard

Did you ever wonder what kinds of creatures might be sharing your back yard with you. The picture on the right looks like just a normal backyard. Maybe the grass is a little high, but it was time for a mowing. We let the back part of the yard grow taller for the critters that come into it. The daisies are volunteers. I figure if they want to come up I'm not going to cut them down. Besides, I like daisies. There are several different areas in our yard where they have come up on their own, so I got that natural look without having to go through the trouble of working for it. Since we live next to a large wooded area we get a lot of volunteers, both in flowering plants and in animals. On these pages I will show some of these visitors to our yard and tell a little about them if I can. We live in the western piedmont section of North Carolina so you will know what area of the country these animals can be found in. One thing I am thankful for, we live in that little strip where there are no rattlesnakes. I have heard that there are rattlers 20 miles or so to the east and the west of us, but none here. Now I like animals, but I don't want to share my yard with those fellows. However we do have snakes.

This is George. He lives under the house in the summer time, or at least he spends part of the time there. I guess he has been here as long as I have, about 20 years. He's getting on up around 6 feet long now. He has never offered to bite anyone that I know of, and he has had plenty of chances over the years. I don't know how many times I have been walking in the yard and looked down to see that my next step would have been on George's back. It does get the heart to pumping, but he just goes on about his business. Once I almost got him with the lawnmower. I made a strip down towards the woods and when I stopped to go back the other way George was laying there about one foot away from the mower. I just prodded him to go on into the woods 'til I finished mowing.

But you see him most often heading under the house. Yep, there he goes. You just can't keep him from going under there. Well, you could put up new screen on the vents I guess. But he seems to like it under there and we don't have a problem with mice, so maybe he can stay for a while longer. It makes it interesting when the cable guy or telephone guy comes to go under the house and you tell them that there may be a 6 foot long black snake under there. They kind of look at you like they don't know if they should take you serious or not. Of course the cable guy came back out with a 6 foot long snake skin so he became a believer. Besides George there are a couple of small king snakes that come through from time to time, but they usually move on. And I did see a black snake going across the back yard one time that would have made George look like a baby. More Pictures of George

We put up bird feeders to feed the birds. Besides the feeders we also throw chicken scratch on the ground for the doves and quail, though I haven't seen the quail in a couple of years. I wish I had been able to get some pictures of the quail parents leading the babies around in the back yard. One parent in the front and one in the back with about 15 babies in between. We get a lot of different birds that come to the feeders. We also get some visitors that aren't birds. This little fellow thinks the bird feeders are for him. He gets very determined sometimes. There are probably a half dozen squirrels that come into the yard so I don't really know which one this one is, but they all are pretty creative when it comes to getting to the feeders. It sometimes is like a game, me trying to outwit them and them showing me that I can't.

But they are so cute sitting there so I started feeding them cracked corn on the ground. I even reserved one feeder for them and fill it with cracked corn. As long as there is corn in their feeder and it isn't too hard to get to they leave the birds feeders alone. Sometimes in the summer when it is really hot there will be several of them lounging around in the trees trying to stay cool. They just sprawl out on the limbs, legs stretched out laying flat on their stomachs. On cooler summer mornings the baby squirrels play their own version of tag, chasing each other around and around trees and across the yard.

Do you see the bunny in the picture? He blends in pretty good with the dead leaves and brown grass. We always have rabbits in the yard, and every spring there are babies around too. This one is about half grown. If you spend a lot of time in the yard they get to where they trust you, a little bit. After they get used to you, you can walk up to within just a few feet of them before they hop off. Usually they will only go ten or fifteen feet and stop, as long as you don't act like you are going to chase them. If they think you are after them they'll take off for the woods. It's not unusual to see three or four in the yard late on a summers day.

During May and June there are a lot of baby birds around the yard. At this time you are likely to see helpless looking baby robins sitting on the ground looking like they have fallen out of the nest and can't get back up. This is a little deceiving at times because the babies will sit on the ground and wait on the parents to bring the food to them. I used to think they were helpless, until I walked up to a couple and they flew off. They are very hard to see if they are on dirt or in fallen leaves, but I guess that is the way it is supposed to be. Looking so much like the surroundings would make it hard for a predator to find them. Of course it also makes it hard to avoid stepping on them sometimes. It can be quite startling when you are walking along in the yard and what you thought was a pile of leaves gets up and runs away, even more startling if they decide to fly away. While the babies are on the ground the parents keep an eye on them as they look for nice juicy bugs to feed their young. If you go around the babies the parents will probably try to distract you as the little ones sit there not making a sound and watching your every move. In the evening the babies will fly off with the parents back up into the trees where they will be safe until tomorrow, when they are likely to come back down for another days feeding.

To check out some  books that will help you attract wildlife to your  backyard go to our Backyard  Wildlife Books page.