What wildlife do you see on your rides?

[margo49]

I just started doing this ride again (after a break). Now it is spring and there is a colony of bee eaters (Merops apiaster) that are doing their burrow-in-the-bank nests. Must be 100 of them with their lovely colours (even better than kingfisher), their trilling whistle song and their crazy aerobatics. Nature's BASE jumpers, they throw themselves into the air (from a thin branch or a power line - they have only tiny little feet) and *then* start to fly.
Also saw otters in the river, mongooses scurrying from one place to another and a flock of skittish finches.

Wonderful thread, btw

[RoadRaven]

I just started doing this ride again (after a break). Now it is spring and there is a colony of bee eaters (Merops apiaster) that are doing their burrow-in-the-bank nests. Must be 100 of them with their lovely colours (even better than kingfisher)...

Ah! Margo! I envy you the bee eaters...
When we first got SKY (satellite TV) one of the first programmes I saw was about African Bee Eaters and it has always stuck with me - not only because of the clarity of picture and colour (we live in a bad reception area for 'normal' TV) but also because of the community the programme described with aunts, uncles and grandparents all helping to raise one couples chicks - and if anyone other than a first cousin approached the hole/nest/burrow, then they would be rousted away promptly. I was well impressed!

[AuntieK]

Last Fri I rode in a place called Antelope Island. It's an island in the Great Salt Lake. There I spotted bison, antelope, barn owl, small owl (it had it's back to me, so I couldn't ID), rabbits, great blue heron, Canadian geese and of course seagulls, ducks and starlings. Oh and lots of bugs (ate more than I saw of these)

[margo49]

Yeah, RoadRaven. I read that last year's boy-bee eater chicks help the parents with the digging of this year's nest. Now there's an idea for occupying teenage boys and keeping them out of trouble
I found another but smaller colony even closer to home (along-the-river-bank ride).Quite the wee ornithologiste,amn't I?

[Duck on Wheels]

I assume the dead skunk doesn't count? That leaves ... hm, turkeys crossing the road, deer, moose, a bat, a coyote once, and today through the window at spin class: a chipmunk.

[DirtDiva]

Pigeons...

[Lise]

For the longest time, the pictures in this thread wouldn't open for me. Finally got to see the two cute fat cats and the lovely lady pig in the mud. Made me smile.

[Tuckervill]

I see nutria a lot. There's one who lives in the falling down shed in my side-neighbor's back yard. It ho-hums around even when the dog is barking at it through the fence, but when I walk close he scampers off. There's a section of Sager Creek in my town where I can always see one hanging out. They are supposed to be nocturnal, but I see them often in the daytime.

They are also a pest, destroying wetland (although I don't know exactly how). They look like a cross between a beaver and a possum.

[margo49]

Yeah we have that nutria. I thought name nutria was a hebrew one so I translated it as otter. This is an English name which seemed to be what I was looking at from descriptions in British Imperialist books I read in my 1960's New Zealand childhood. Are you sure it is related to the possum?