I love the little lab assistant! None of my family can smell stinkbugs. I can smell fireflies though!
We have stinkbugs who reside in our house. They are free to roam the house as “pets.” Why, you ask? Because for whatever (very) odd reason, my husband is EXTREMELY fond of them and refers to them as his friends. No kidding.
There’s more…we were driving down the highway at like 70mph one day. Out of the blue he’s like, “pull over, pull over!”! Thinking something is really wrong, I rush to the shoulder of the highway and put the car in park. The emergency? One of his “friends” was hanging onto his passenger side mirror for dear life. It rode inside the car with us all the way home. I cannot even make this stuff up.
Same at my house! My mum, little brother, and I all love them and they are free to roam - we only relocate them if their drunken flying starts causing chaos
Y’all are seriously cracking me up! Especially @gina5678 's husband and the on-the-road emergency! Flying insects don’t last long in our house. The cats prefer to keep the domestic air space clear.
Since we all know birds are reptiles, here’s a roadrunner I just saw at my local nature preserve. One of my favourite birds, but hard to photograph. They’re fast little buggers.
That’s quite a treat to photograph in person one of those cool creatures! Roadrunner reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the roadrunner and the coyote! I would watch those cartoons sitting at my kitchen table watching a little black and white tv that was sitting on top of the washing machine (front load) next to the stove….sorry I went down a “Rabbit Hole!”
I actually see them fairly often at this preserve, but this is the closest I’ve ever managed to get to one. They’re pretty skittish, but this guy let me get surprisingly close, which was a real treat.
I love the way they run. Just like a little therapod dinosaur. A lot about them is pretty goofy, though. Not hard to see why they inspired a cartoon character.
Very, very cool! Every time I visit family in OK, I hope to see a roadrunner out at the NWR there. Haven’t seen one since I was a kid, and I think that was in AZ. I am sorry that you’re week has been challenging but I’m glad that you had a time of refreshment out in nature.
Dan and I took the dogs for a walk at one of the local parks this afternoon. The reptiles were very much out and about. Saw lots and lots of turtles, more than usual.
This decent-sized gator kept an eye on us while we walked on the trail around the pond. Usually they just hold still and pretend to be logs, but this one lifted and turned his head. Kept an eye on us. The pond is perhaps 10-12’ lower than the trail at that point.
Yep. Alligators are potentially in any water around here, and we’ve got water pretty much everywhere. I’ve never seen one in the waterways near our house, though.
Our dogs aren’t allowed out unless they’re on a leash but that’s not because of the alligators. That said, I do know people who have lost dogs in the woods and marshes, most likely due to a gator. (We’ve also got black bears, water moccasins, rattlesnakes and wild boars. Now, boars are scary!) I admit that I was happy that the bigger gator we saw today was downhill from us and didn’t look too inclined to move since we had the dogs. Tink is almost bite-sized, and Zelda would be a decent meal.
That said, the pond it was in is in the park attached to the local community college. It’s maybe 50 yards from the parking lot, not far from subdivision which connects via a walking trail. There is an inlet to one of the many waterways and gators are a common sight. Knock on wood, I’ve never heard of one behaving badly there.
I’ve done a fair amount of traipsing and tromping in the marshes and waterways for assorted reasons. I’ve seen a fair number of gators. Normally they’re not a problem. They become problematic if you bother their nests or when people start feeding them but honestly, most folks know better.
TLDR: Yes, we have gators. No, I don’t worry about them.
Absolutely with you on that! My cousin was a surveyor in Florida, and he saw all kinds of wildlife on the job. He spent a lot of time in the woods and water for fun, too. He respected wildlife, but the only thing he was really concerned about was the wild boars. He had tales of being treed by those things, and stuck for hours until the animal left.
We have mountain lions where I live, and I’d rather run into a gator any day! Recently had a mountain lion encounter that was a wee bit too close for comfort. They’re beautiful animals, but one of the few that make me genuinely nervous when I know they’re nearby. Honestly, I’d feel safer jumping into the water with great white sharks than hiking a trail where a mountain lion has just been spotted.
Yeah, a coworker was messing with the turtle before I took him back and brought him back outside poor guy sped off the second I set him down by the woods lol
They’re beautiful animals, but one of the few that make me genuinely nervous when I know they’re nearby. Honestly, I’d feel safer jumping into the water with great white sharks than hiking a trail where a mountain lion has just been spotted.
poor guy sped off the second I set him down by the woods lol