We've been very pleased with the animals that come to visit us. These include red and grey squirrels, rabbits, and enormous numbers of chipmunks. The chipmunks are real cheap, just contact us if you want any. Nearly all of the grey squirrels have damaged tails. We don't know exactly why, but we can make a few guesses. Jay is pretty sure he saw a coyote loping through the woods behind our house in December '00.
Our neighbor saw a marten (also known as a fisher cat) traveling between our back yards in October. He thought one of my ferrets had gotten out, until I told him my ferrets were both albinos. We also realized that the animal was far too large to be anything but a marten. A marten is a large mink-like member of the weasel family. They've also been seen regularly in the area.
We also have deer, of course. This one is nibbling our rhododendron. Our neighbors told us to not bother planting tulips, and we've taken their advice.
We've also seen some nice indian pipes, and some very large insects.
The birds are also excellent here, which is not surprising, since we live a mile from an Audubon sanctuary. We have cardinals (Mr. and Mrs.), blue jays, crows, downy woodpeckers (Mr. and Mrs.), black-capped chickadees, white-throated sparrows, nuthatches, tufted titmice, lots of dark-eyed juncos, and even a carolina wren (it was a warm winter). Sorry about the blurriness of some of the photos, but the birds don't hold still for long.
The turkeys have been the most fun. We moved in in May, and some neighbors told us that Mrs. Turkey had started the year out with fifteen chicks. They eventually got whittled down to seven, which is still pretty good odds for wild turkeys. We scatter cracked corn for them, and we're now a regular stop on their daily circuit. They frequently come right up to the house, and sometimes raid the feeder, which is hilarious. Here's another of them at the feeder.
They're pretty fearless. The turkeys were milling about in our neighbor's driveway, and when our neighbors tried to back out and honked the horn to get them to move out of the way, the turkeys just honked back.
We were also told that as chicks, the turkeys were chased by a neighbor's cat. They haven't forgotten, and the surest way to get them to come right up to the house is to put a cat in the window. Here's another shot of Buster, who is fascinated by the turkeys. One day this summer, Buster was sunning herself on the back steps, and the turkeys came by and decided to stalk her. I'm sure they would have attacked if we hadn't been there. They can be pretty aggressive. A wild turkey was recently reported in the Boston Globe as having harrassed and attacked a postal worker in Newton, keeping him from his appointed rounds. No, really, they had pictures.
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