Living in the country, you get to see various critters in your yard that people sheltered in cities and suburbs don't. (Well, I guess they encounter their own forms of wildlife, but that's a subject for another post.)
Northwestern Oregon and southwestern Washington State are among the safest places to be when it comes to poisonous snakes. The only one in these parts is the Western rattlesnake, and I understand they don't inhabit the area in which I live. I have encountered garter snakes on my back porch, however. They can be a bit obstreperous until they get to know you, but their bite is not poisonous. Since I live on a creek that has a rocky berm, it's not surprising that they're here.
One evening, I heard things banging around in the kitchen, and then one of my cats came running into the living room with something gray in her mouth. When she dropped it onto the floor, I could see that it was a baby rodent of some sort. It was alive, and scurried away and hid as best it could in a corner of the fireplace. I managed to rescue it and put it outdoors. (Yes, I know I'll hear complaints about that, but I am just not going to kill anything if I can help it. Let nature take its course.)
I've been told that during the summer, there will be deer that come into the yard, foraging, and there are also coyotes in the general vicinity.
For the past month, I have been glimpsing the fluffy white rear view of a cottontail rabbit. Today, when I pulled up in my car next to the back porch, there was the rabbit in the yard near the creek, chowing down on some leaves. It is still pretty small and is a pale brown in color (except for the white "cotton" tail.) Its ears were translucent pink, and as the sun was low in the west when I took this picture, the light shone right through and made the ears glow.
This is as close as it would let me get to it today ... pretty close, actually ... before it bounded off along the creek bank.
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