Critters in the yard on #caturday

LittleBit has always been an indoor cat. She's so skittish that she runs and hides if anyone unknown to her comes around. When she was here three years ago and allowed outside, she would run and hide almost immediately, prompting an intense "search and rescue" operation that can last up to a couple of hours — literally — to actually locate her and then coax her out of hiding.

Over the past couple of years, however, my late-husband's sister and LittleBit's guardian, has been allowing her outside at another residence for a few minutes at a time. Slowly, she has become more comfortable outdoors for brief periods. She finally got to the point where she seemed to enjoy it, provided that she is allowed an open door where she can dash inside again whenever she is ready.

So, this visit, she has been given a little more freedom to explore, even though she doesn't really "know" my back yard so well. She looks so small out there, though — do you see her in the above photo? It's like playing a game of Where's Waldo Where's Kitty? 😁

Zooming-in a bit, she is easier to see, just sitting there basking in the sights and smells around her. That's about the limit of where we felt comfortable allowing her to roam by herself, though.

Some of the critters that frequent the back yard would be more in danger from LittleBit than she would be from them. As one example of many, this little chipmunk that enjoys dining on the edge of my patio with the food that he finds.

However, we had to keep a close watch because of potential dangers to her, which she might not be able to handle. I have seen hawks in this area, such as a Cooper's Hawk, and others. I have heard owls hooting nearby over the years, but only managed to spot one for the first time this past March. While hawks and owls often strike at smaller prey, she would make a fine meal for a large-enough creature.

Just slightly larger than LittleBit, we have groundhogs and racoons wandering around. A groundhog would probably only attack a cat if it felt threatened, but not as prey. It would certainly fight back if LittleBit pounced on it. A racoon would likely be more aggressive, though, and would certainly be a better fighter than a groundhog would be.

My sister-in-law seemed more concerned about the owls and hawks. However, my biggest concern, was the Gray Fox that has been hanging around quite a bit this year. I mean, there have been foxes in this area as long as I can remember, and I can often hear them at night when they do their mating calls — in the distance. But this is the first year I have actually seen one in my yard, and it has been hanging around for weeks, coming and going. I'm not sure where its den is located, but it has to be somewhere quite close by. There are plenty of patches of woods within a five-minute walk from here, and one patch is diagonally adjacent to the back of this property. A fox would not hesitate to make a quick meal of a smallish cat. 😬 The only photo I've managed to catch of the fox is shown below. Hopefully, I will get a better, clearer photo some day!

And then there was the black bear that wandered through my yard back in 2019! 😱 It was a young bear, not terribly large, but there were several sightings of it in the neighborhood that year but no recent reports.

This area is rich in other wildlife, too. It's located outside of a small town (estimated population 3000) where the suburbs break into countryside. There's a pasture across the street from me that once had horses, but they're no longer kept there. Only a quarter-mile (0.4 km) away is a cow pasture full of cows. I only have to drive five or ten minutes to be in the midst of smallish mountains with bigger ones right behind them, covered in forests with wildlife aplenty. Possums and skunks make an occasional appearance in my yard, as well as small things like moles, voles, mice, black snakes, garter snakes, and the poisonous copperhead snakes. But most of those things would leave a cat alone, unless provoked. The owls, hawks, foxes, and bears are another story, though.

The nighttime sounds are lovely here, except perhaps for the very loud, raucous calls of the toads. They sound like a much-amplified version of the wooden güiro percussion instrument. Two of them like to sit in my neighbor's back yard and sing/call to each other at night. 😜 But, mostly it is tree frogs, katydids, crickets, "peeper" frogs, bullfrogs, and the sounds of night birds like the Chuck-Wills-Widow (with a song similar to the Whippoorwill) and the delightful singing of the Mockingbirds, all accompanied by the warm glow of random fireflies and gently illuminated by Mother Moon overhead.