backyard wildlife

The common garter snake is a friend in your backyard

/ Roadtirementvintage / 8 Comments

We had a surprise today as we were enjoying our backyard swing. Our son had just moved a tarp from the mat that our swing sits on. There exposed was a snake, the first one we have ever seen in our 12 years living in this property. We’re glad to see this guy in our yard.

Surprise, I was hiding under that tarp

This retile is a common garter snake. (Thamnophis sirtalis) It is fine to have around, it is perfectly harmless to humans. They are carnivorous and thrive  on small live prey like insects, earthworms, slugs, snails and small fish, among other backyard pests.

Portrait of our new found backyard resident

Garter snakes are diurnal, meaning they are primarily active during daylight hours. In the summer heat they come out early morning and late evening. Spring and fall are the seasons when they like coming out during mid day. You may see them sunbathing during the day.

Hummingbirds in our backyard

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Captured one feeding with the phone

This is one of five hummingbird feeders that we have installed in our backyard. We put these out the first week of April. No hummingbirds showed up until the first week of May and we were glad because we  were thinking we might not see any this year. On a podcast we saw a report suggested these feeders for $1.50 at Dollar Tree.

Glad to report that as we enjoy sitting in our yard swing hummingbirds come to all five of our feeders. This is backyard birding at its best.

 

Some squirrel scenes

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Here’s some squirrel action we observed on the tree in our backyard.

This nut tastes pretty good, glad I found it.

There must be something to eat around here

The squirrels were out in force this afternoon enjoying the sunlight, even though it was chilly and windy with a definite feel of fall in the air.

A couple of squirrels

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It is a very cold day, highs only in the mid teens. These two squirrels were “frozen” in place for several minutes on the trunk of this maple tree. There were no predators visible from our back door, however these guys seemed to be in the classic “Don’t move or that thing will catch and eat us!”