You live in a beautiful place! We live on the outskirts of a small city and there is farm land and small woods and bushes and overgrowth, a walking trail, near us. We definitely have lots of deer. And there is a small pond, so we have Canada Geese, and we get all excited about the babies. Those are the highlights. I’m sure there are many small animals, but we don’t see them.

Hummers like red flowers with deep throat’s. They have Ben buzzing my nasturtiums.

I’ve always wanted to see a bear during my travels to the mountains but it hasn’t happened yet. My father in law has been getting visits from one at his house in Georgia. He was bathing in a little pond that’s in front of the house.

We don’t live in the woods, but there are wooded areas nearby. We’ve spotted all kinds of critters in our “wildlife refuge” (our yard). Lots of deer, wild turkey, opossums (they eat ticks so I’m happy to see them), raccoons, red fox, ground hogs, rabbits, bear, and the occasional skunk. It’s a challenge keeping the wild things out of our vegetable garden! We once saw a bobcat crossing the road in front of us nearby too, but never in our yard.

I have seen fox here, and deer of course. Yesterday just up the street were two mama deer and their combined 3 babies. The first I’ve seen the babies this year. We hear coyotes…and there are tracks and other evidence that they are also in our yard at night. If I were to see a bear I’d be freaked and excited. They HAVE begun to be seen in small towns near here, down from ‘up north’ for reasons only the bears understand. I have taken my feeders down at night because of the racoons. I forget a lot though. Evidence, as in overturned pails and pulled down feeders let me know they were here overnight. I haven’t seen an opposum in many years, which is sad, because they eat ticks!

We have deer (twin fawns right now), rabbits, squirrels (but not the pretty white ones that you do), turtles, Canada geese (by the score!), Mallards, osprey, all sorts of birds and water fowl, including recently: a roseated spoonbill! There’s never a dull moment, although I’ve never seen a bear in our neighborhood!

I would not approach that bear to determine whether he is friendly or not. Yikes. Or a bobcat. What a variety of wildlife. Nothing truly unusual here, just way too many mice and moles/shrews/voles whatever, including one that died in our garage, resulting in a lot of work to find it. Randy is now just putting his garage back together.

We found a bay squirrel in the park near our house the other day. Although the dogs love to chase squirrels and rabbits in this park, they didn’t bother the baby. I hope mommy squirrel got him back into the nest OK.

Uff da! Not sure how I’d feel about a bear frequenting my neighborhood but I’m glad you’re not freaked out! My daughter in Duluth, MN, had one at their neighbor’s garbage once. And she lives in town- not even a suburb. Oy.

Now I can place you living in a Zoo zone like Dianna. Here in VA Beach we only have squirrels (gray ones) and rabbits. Not as many birds as I would like. Last but not least an opossum. Like you Beth Ann, not very fond of this animal. Ours is scarily looking.

I don’t think it’s good to think of any bear as friendly. However, if given time and a chance, possums can become friendly in a dim, slow way. Not that it makes a difference to their usefulness whether they are tame or shy. They don’t make very good pets, and they are just born to eat roaches and cat litter and everything else you prefer not to have to look at in the garden. (One exception. Mine will not touch raw wheat pasta.)