Almost walked into this guy. Didn’t see him or his reflection. But he stayed cool and let me take his picture.

I hope you appreciate this Wildlife instalment. There are a lot of these guys around, but they are very camera shy and tend to keep odd hours, so getting a good picture is difficult. Once this one heard the shutter on my phone camera he turned around and trundled off in the other direction.

I don’t like groundhogs. They were the one animal I would hunt while living in the country. But in my last years on the farm they had all but disappeared, hunted to extinction by wild dogs.

Unfortunately, when I moved I discovered that they had relocated to the city before me. And now I can’t even shoot them.

In my ongoing attempt to capture all the various fauna living in my neighbourhood, I had this little fellow pose for a picture. After I thanked him, he slowly hopped away.

This is bold behaviour. Foxes in my neighbourhood don’t have any problem with just hopping up on the porch to smell the spring flowers. Then loping off for a walk down the sidewalk. This fellow even let me take his picture. Or her picture. Not sure which.

Last year at this time I posted a pic of a neighbour’s back porch that a family of foxes had made their home. I haven’t seen the foxes this year, which means the same location has been taken over by other creatures that have just welcomed some new additions to their families. See if you can find the baby groundhogs and the baby rabbit in this pic! (You can make the picture bigger by clicking on it.)

The decks behind the units in my condo complex have, over the years, been home to many unpleasant burrowing creatures like groundhogs and skunks. Except for under my deck, where I have built an impermeable stone wall where the deck adjoins the cement slab of the back porch that the critters like to dig under. That was a long battle, but I finally defeated their digging projects.

I don’t like groundhogs. I even shot them as a kid. I like skunks even less because the stink just gets everywhere. If they spray nearby you have it in your house for days. So I was happy a couple of years ago when a family of foxes moved in and took over these ready-made dens. No more rabbits. Only a few groundhog sightings. But you can see the fox family out playing every morning and again at twilight. They are bold and very cute. Here’s one of the adults (not sure if it’s male or female) while you can make out a few of the kits hanging out under the edge of a deck close to me. I’ll try and get some better pics, as they are quite photogenic.

See here for an earlier wildlife sighting in my neighbourhood.

Somebody took a wrong turn.

You never know what you’re going to see looking out your back window some mornings. When I lived on the farm this wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, but I live right in the heart of the city now. I hope the little fellow made it home.