Unexpected Wildlife Encounters

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
Canada geese do that in some parts of St. Louis county. They came down here one day years ago and never left.

It's not uncommon to see them strolling down the sidewalks at a local community college or the empty end of a department store parking lot.

 

[TheSeeker]

They loiter around golf courses quite a bit too.

Speaking of golf courses, my Dad was once delayed for about an hour when he was playing golf in Banff National Park because there was a grizzly bear on the next hole.

 

[Gary7]

^ That's really wild about the turkeys (no pun intended). Very odd with how they're semi-fearless around humans. I think they're slowly making plans to get back at us for their human-bred turkey cousin being a major meat staple.

 

[M'Sharak]

Where I live now, there's a young Cooper's hawk I've met a couple of times. Once, he'd just caught a gopher underneath the big cedar next to our driveway; the other time he'd been cornered on the ground by crows, and my walking unannounced around the corner of the house distracted the crows for long enough that he was able to make his exit.

Is this the start of a beautiful friendship? Or at least a satisfying alliance?

"Ever having a gopher problem, mate; well, give me a call, I'll see what I can do, you get my meaning?"

Anytime the hawks want to shop for gophers in our yard, they're more than welcome. We seem to have an inexhaustible supply (various neighborhood cats have been harvesting the rodents for years and have failed to put any lasting dent in the population.)

^^^
Canada geese do that in some parts of St. Louis county. They came down here one day years ago and never left.

It's not uncommon to see them strolling down the sidewalks at a local community college or the empty end of a department store parking lot.

Lake Merritt in Oakland is like that. It's been a stopover for migrating geese probably for centuries, (officially designated a wildlife refuge in 1870) and more recently there have been some which stopped and now stay year-round.

http://oaklandnorth.net/2011/09/06/ruffled-feathers-the-goose-dispute-at-lake-merritt/