Both our trash and recycling are picked up on Thursday so every Wednesday evening, just before retiring, I have a ritual. I remove the bags from our indoor trashcans, deposit them in our outdoor garbage can, and roll the outdoor garbage can to the curb, ready for the bold representatives of Streets and San to take it.
Yesterday I had a bit of an adventure. When I went out to our outdoor garbage can, parked in its cubbyhole at the side our house, I opened the gate, rolled it out, and noticed something moving just behind it. It was our old friend Mephitis mephitis, the striped skunk. Carefully keeping the garbage can between me and M. Le Pew, I left it in the alley and calmly strolled back to the front of the house and went indoors to give our guest a little time to collect himself. He took the opportunity to bombard the side of the house and the surrounding fencing with his own personal fragrance and decamped.
Ten minutes later I shone a flash in the direction in which he’d been sitting. No sign. I rolled the garbage can to the curb and my little adventure was over.
One of the few situations where it is preferable to not have a dog by your side.
If anyone believes wildlife has not adapted to urban living in my yard or within 30 feet of it I have seen the following wild mammals: mice, rats, bats, voles, squirrels, rabbits, deer, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, possums, and skunks.
The only ones of those that I haven’t actually seen in my yard are foxes and coyotes.
Haven’t seen any skunks here but we have all the rest you listed plus rabbits, chipmunks, and deer (practically domesticated) and we’ve had several generations of hawks nesting in our yard and neighbors’.
We are suburban, nit Urban though.
Autocorrect is bad enough in English, worse when you accidentally shift to keyboards in other languages.
A couple years ago we observed to our horror a momma and about 4-5 babies exiting from underneath the house. Off to a patch of fescue by the golf course to do what skunks do. We put rocks in the way of their nest but they get back in during the night.
The next day we get animal control out. He shows at dusk and sure enough out come momma and the kids like ducks in a row. Literally just 3-4 feet in front of us. (We are following the animal control guys lead). He tells us they don’t even see us. He puts a cage in front of momma and she walks right in. He puts this cage in the back of his station wagon ( you’re shittn me, right!?). He tells me he will just take it out somewhere to release in the wild. “She won’t spray. Unless I disturb her she will just nap………as she curls up in a ball.). And off he drives.
You learn something new everyday.
We have a pretty lengthy history with skunks. Some years before we replaced our back porch with the addition, like you a family of skunks had taken up residence underneath our porch. We waited until we saw them leave and then filled in the hole and four to five feet on either side of it with cement.
When the skunks returned later, those were a bunch of angry skunks. They hissed and hollered and sprayed for days but finally they gave up and left.
Every year thereafter we had one or more skunks returning to the Old Homestead to see if they could get in.
Live in the sticks so see most of those on a regular basis, plus deer and lots of snakes, snapping turtles, owls and like the hawks. Used to have pheasants too. Miss them. Wide variety of birds which we love, especially the hawks.
Steve
For what it’s worth, Dave, the animal control guy was singularly interested in getting the mother out of there. Said that would be that, and it was. Not clear what became of the babies. I suspect the local hawks and owls had dinner.
It’s a jungle out there.