In 2012 I wrote about the skunk that took up residence in my yard (good), and this post here has been up since around that time. Now, twelve years later, it was due for a significant expansion, so here we are. Gosh, I love animals!

I love having garden visitors of any kind, but there’s a special charm when they’re the non-human kind. Their presence in my back yard gives both me and my human guests feelings of wonder and peace, with the occasional bout of excitement.

A surfeit of skunks, whee!

I’ll start with everyone’s favourite trash panda:

Raccoons

These two young raccoons spent the day snoozing in the tree overhanging my backyard. Right around that time, on an evening close to midnight, I heard a sound out back: a young, healthy raccoon raided the eggshell supply that I keep to mix with the bird seed (or dig into the garden). He (or she) also pulled down the pet laundry that I’d folded on the park bench. He seemed to like rubbing his paws all over the towel, so that was fun!  Then, he ate some stuff in the garden – leaves, slugs, who knows.

raccoons!

So I fetched a midnight snack myself. I started on some yogourt while watching him, when he fixed his eyes on me in that dim, myopic way raccoons have, and came up to the patio door to poke his nose into the screen: “Got some food for me?”

I told him I had a water gun and he better not mess with the screen. Then he picked up and “washed” the spilled eggshells. I turned the patio light off. He quietly retreated back to the park bench; I went to bed.

Squirrels: not just an excuse for ADHD

This spot here was a favourite for the squirrels. (I’ve since moved this shed to another part of the yard, and rebuilt it.) They scooped away the dirt on the shed roof, which didn’t help the herbs I had growing there, but I didn’t mind. It’s fun to see squirrels play and lounge:

Squirrel lounging in the herb garden and NOT running away

I’ve actually got a lot of posts about squirrels, because I’m quite enthusiastic about them. I have an entire post dedicated to my long-lost friend Gladys. I have one about keeping them out of the bird seed (Squirrel Buster bird feeder), another about keeping them out of the garden, and a DIY for making them a cabin of their own.

So let’s move on to the next visitors…

A Cooper’s Hawk

One year in the fall, I had a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk. Hawks are accipiters (a bit about that below). It was morning, and I was in the kitchen getting coffee, when I saw a big bird sitting on my back fence. I called my roommate to keep her attention on it — she had the name for it in German — while I went to get my glasses and my camera. When I got back, it had moved from the fence to the lilac tree. It stayed there for more than half an hour.

Passerine passersby

“Passerine” is the common name of Passeriformes, which is an Order of birds. Bird guides are organized by Order and Family, and you can browse the long list here. Not all birds are passerines, but most of the birds we see in our gardens are! It’s very rare that I get any other kind of bird here (the hawk being the wild exception).

I definitely have a resident flock of one member of the Passeridae family – House Sparrows! Otherwise, several of the Passerellidae visit on a regular or seasonal basis, notably, Dark-eyed Juncos (my favourite!) come by in late winter/early spring.

If you have a great tolerance for terrible photography (which is why I don’t write about birds I actually see all that much: really bad pics), you can see a Common Grackle — grackles are amongst passerines! — bathing here in the waterfall of the pond. Some rock ledges are submerged below the water’s surface, so bigger birds have the confidence to get themselves wet.

The grackle is in the centre of the image, facing left. Grackles really do not come by very often, or I’d have a better photo by now.

The pond is a mainstay for the house sparrows, but it also attracts pairs and even trios of Black-capped Chickadees – I love hearing their arrival! – as well as Northern Cardinals, the occasional American Goldfinch, American Robin, and sometimes even House Finches. During migration, many different warblers (a Magnolia warbler comes to mind) come and have a drink at my pond. More rarely, but year-round, a Downy Woodpecker also comes by.

I have an anecdote to relate about another passerine: crows. The Crow PoPo. Everyone hates the cops until you actually need one (except I don’t think many people hate crows. Some do, but how can you hate a bird that smart?), and that’s what crows do. They’re your Neighbourhood Watch. When you hear them calling, or when you see a group of them flying, look up! You might see a hawk or an owl they’re harassing. Or they might just be congregating on the way to their dortoir, the place where they all gather to go to sleep.

Anyway, the anecdote is, early one morning I awoke to the crows being really loud outside my window. So I got up to investigate. It turned out that someone’s very fluffy cat had taken refuge in a high bough of the big tree out back. The crows noticed “What is this predator doing here?” which is their job! So I went out and coaxed the strange cat a little, who budged only a little, and the crows peeled off one by one. “Situation’s under control.”

Finally, every year in late autumn, the European Starlings come berry-picking from the Virginia creeper out front. This is a one-second clip, after they’ve pretty much gotten everything:

Groundhogs! My other favourite

This GIF assembled from pics I took of the groundhog visitor in 2015 (look at that vegetable plot!)

It’s been a number of times these guys have come by, which is always a thrill. In 2021, we had one living in the neighbourhood that my neighbour saw on a regular basis. Here s/he was, having a nice snack at my very own green driveway:

Last year, another groundhog came by a few times (I have no way of knowing if it’s the same one or not! They’re too elusive, for their own good), and this is not the first time I’ve met with such a pose:

I love them so much. It only makes sense I was born on Groundhog Day!

Rabbits! Wild ones.

I don’t get rabbits here in my urban-grid-locked block. I think they need a lot more green space than we have. The feature photo (above) is of a wild rabbit who made my parents’ front lawn and garden hedge part of its territory. She, or he, stayed resting under a tree out of the rain, stock-still, just a few rotations of the ears. Then, it headed down the side stairs to the back yard, where it roams between my parents’ and their many neighbours. So long as there are plenty of dandelions and other herbs to eat, and shelter from predators, it will be safe.

Of course, while most people would welcome sharing a yard with wildlife, some gardeners and some dogs may make their yards inhospitable. Let’s hope this rabbit has a good den and is well-prepared for the winter. For all I know, it’s safe under my Dad’s workshop.

Only, that made me wonder:

How do rabbits survive in winter?

As is often the case, this is not an original question; others have looked for the answer before me. This page is about how to identify the five lagomorphs native to Canada. And this page is about what rabbits do in winter: They form “rabbit highways” in the snow from place to place. They need thickets of woods and vegetation like wild raspberry patches. 

When farmers rip out hedgerows and small woods along their property and fences, they eliminate habitat for many kinds of animals. I wish they wouldn’t do that. It directly and significantly contributes to the endangerment of species. And it’s the same thing with our towns and cities: they can stand a lot more natural marginalia than we typically have.

Grandmother Wren, an older blog meant for grandparents and their grandchildren, tells us that rabbits often use the burrows of other species — such as groundhogs and skunks — to overwinter. In another post, she explains how a lot of other animals  go through physical changes for both hibernation and endurance. I know the Snowshoe Hare changes from brown in the summer to white in the winter. They don’t hibernate, so like deer, they must forage under the snow for the previous summer’s vegetation.

I hope that my parents’ rabbit (like “my” skunk, living under the deck) doesn’t have too far to roam to keep fed and healthy over the winter. Roaming increases its energy expenditure, and as Brits learned from 2010’s unusually cold winter in Europe, animals that do not migrate or hibernate need to conserve their energy against the cold. (Do not disturb animals in such conditions unnecessarily.)

Keys to having wildlife enjoy your garden:

  1. Have a consistent source of water for them, especially on very hot and very cold days, and
  2. Have a “messy” garden, with brush piles to conceal entry and exit points, shrubbery for hiding and resting in, and a tree or some kind of structural wood that they can use to perch and navigate the terrain
  3. Build a deck above ground, instead of a paved terrace. This provides a secure space for them both to den and to travel through
  4. Create a gap with a shorter fence board on each side of your yard, so that wildlife can pass through safely. Connectivity for all! (Except humans, because we can be such a nuisance.)