What kinds of animals live in your environment? I'm fascinated by the many species in urban Los Angeles.
Right now, outside the window eating from my Mom's bird feeder is an English House Sparrow. Beautiful bird with red breast and head and striped wings. These guys are peaceful little guys, agile and wary. Also peaceful but less agile and pleasant are the goofy pigeons with their bobble-head walk, the nasty, ugly beggars of the bird world, the color of asphalt with plumage like an oil slick, perfectly camoflauged against the hawks and other visual predators.
High in the air above the less congested parts of the city and above Griffith Park, the skies are ruled by red-tailed hawks. Night time is rule by owls who once in a blue moon will silently swoop right by your windshield up in the hilly, overgrown areas. I've seen packs of them all waiting for a target on a power line late at night. Deeper in the city though, and closer to the ground, there are constant turf wars between the mockingbirds and the crows. The crows are much bigger and stronger, but the mockingbirds are aggressive and better organized. They seem to have a call which to them means "Hey, homie, there's a crow over here! Get over here and let's kick his ass!"
I've read that mockingbirds have this sneaky trick where they lay eggs in other birds' nests. The mockingbird baby has evolved to grow very quickly once hatched and once it gets big enough it starts tossing it's stepbrothers and sisters out of the nest and monopolizing it's stepmommy's attention.
Coyotes show up once in a while. There is a coyote beggar in Griffith Park I've seen a few times by the side of the road, waiting for handouts. Of course there are rats and mice. Once in Tae Kwon Do class a cute little mouse came running up to my Master and just sat there and looked at him. The whole class came to a stop in amazement. Then it ran away. Strangely enough I don't really see good size rats. Maybe the predators get them in my neighborhood. A nice fat rat is just the rice size for a cat, owl or coyote.
Racoons, skunks, and oppossums show up every once in a while. The possums look like giant rats with a surly, "go away and leave me alone" kind of attitude. I almost pet a possum once, thinking it was a cat, and freaked out when it hissed at me. Another time a possum on a fence just above head level hissed at me right as my head passed within inches of it's body.
Feral cats dart around, and packs of feral dogs scavenge in the less pleasant parts of town.
American and German cockroaches have made the city their home better than we have it seems. The American ones are the sewer roaches, the German ones are kitchen roaches.
Houseflies also have that grease slick kind of look to them, like pigeons. While disgusting, the housefly's life cycle shows some impressive tricks. This little worm transforms into an airplane before it drops it's babies into the best possible food source - other species' rotting garbage!
It's amazing how much life there is in the city.
The post that was quoted here has been removedI thought your Lords killed most of the foxes in England back in the day. Good to hear they've made a comeback! Pretty animals.
The Sparrows like to make nests inside street signs. It's cute but can be unnerving when you're looking for where that incessant chirping is coming from!
I was born and raised in California and never really gave wildlife a second thought... last year we moved to north Texas and I already have a raccoon as big as my daughter that comes to me when I call it...things like raccoons, skunks, armadillos, possums, and foxes are literately in our back yards here.