This Episode of the New House Blog will be a little different from usual, in that we will be focusing exclusively on the wildlife that surrounds us and sometimes makes its presence known, and we will not be looking at any house/yard/garden/repair projects at all. This Episode will be mostly pictures (lots o' pictures) with commentary.
Menagerie
Due to the wild, untamed nature of our backyard, a lot of local wildlife flows through our property, and we felt that we were not seeing enough of it, so we set up some game cameras to capture some animals and gain some insight into who, exactly, has been making footprints and digging in the dirt of our back yard. Our cameras operate during the day and the night, and it seems that the more interesting animals come out at night. Some of the pictures below were grabbed from video footage, and some from my phone's camera.
Remember you can click on each photo to view it full-size.
Let's start with the common deer.
Here we can see a deer family in the early morning light.
A Texas spiny lizard.
We start with this single racoon.
It seems that he has brought a friend. But who's eyes do we see in the background?
This looks like a family group.
No, it's not a small bear - it's just another racoon.
This is a coachwhip snake. He was between 18" and 24" in length, and he didn't stay long. He fled into the garage, despite all of the doors being closed, and when I entered the garage he ran away really fast. He has some good speed in him.
Meet Mr. Fox.
Mr. Fox.
Mr. Fox is a gray fox, the most common variety in Texas.
Gray foxes can climb trees, but so far we have not seen any in trees.
What is Mr. Fox studying so intently?
Mr Fox putting in a rare early morning appearance. You can see one of his friends way back in the background.
Mr. Fox appears to be sniffing for food.
It may not be clear from this image, but the video clearly shows Mr. Fox carrying something (food?) in his mouth.
Mr. Fox and friend again, in the early morning light.
We caught this ugly fellow sneaking across our yard. For some reason, some of our neighbors think opossum's are cute and beneficial.
The nine-banded armadillo is the state small mammal of Texas.
Maybe these guys are the real reason for the disappearance of our roadrunner...
Meet the coyotes. Here we see a pair of them passing just passing through.
This photo, like the photo above, is actually illuminated by the infrared from two different cameras.
Thus we can get two different perspectives on the same coyotes at the same time.
Interestingly, coyotes are one of the few animals in Texas that can be hunted year-round (with a valid hunting license).
Saving the best for last...
Yes, folks, we had a real bobcat wandering through our back yard. I was thrilled when I saw that we had captured him on video. I mean, just look at him - he's beautiful.
We caught him coming and going. We have only seen him on the cameras this one time, and we hope to see more of him.
Let's finish out with this picture of the mighty Edgar hunting a lizard inside our Texas House. We safely removed said lizard outside before any harm had been done (have I mentioned that lizards are our friends?).
