I had a pair of mourning doves build a nest on the fire escape a few years back.

And then a few weeks ago, a pair of pigeons tried to take up residence iinside my place! I heard a thump in the other room, go to check, and there's one standing in a pan on the stove and another inside the window!

Once when I went backpacking we set up our tents in a grassy field by a marked campground that a young buck (deer) had decided to call home.

At night it pulled my father's t-shirt off a rope line and pooped on it - even wild deer didn't think much of the guy but I digress.

One day, while I was reclining on a log and reading a book ("Contact" by Carl Sagan if I remember) the buck came within reach and snorted at me while ducking its head. The buck was pretty skittish though so there was no inter-species "Contact" between us.

Doe, cottontail rabbits, woodchuck/groundhog, chipmunks, Sandhill cranes, turkey vultures, eagle. All seen relatively near to my current home in just the last three months. Pretty certain at least one raccoon has raided our trash regularly.

Hi everyone. Now that the wedding is over, and we are recuperating, you'll probably see me occasionally.

A Unique Handfasting Ceremony: Love and Pride Celebrated

This past Saturday, on 21-June-2025, which not coincidentally was Litha (Summer Solstice), Jenni and I were handfasted. Before twenty-five of our closest friends, we declared our love for one anoth…

^{An Aging Trans Woman}

Heh. One time I was walking a friend's dog (big ol' rottweiler) in one of the parks here in the metro.

An urban deer came into view.
Dog took off after the deer.
The rope leash cut through the flesh on my hand.
I took off after Dog and ran until I was ready to throw up.
Eventually Dog came back, well exercised, panting, and happy.
Dumb dog. Deer legs are longer than dog legs - what the hell?

I've had plenty of run-ins with bears. The most recent was just a couple of weeks ago at the Klamath River where we were driving along (in quiet electric mode) and came across a bear crossing the road.

I've also had bears play with the flaps on my tent while in the Boy Scouts (me, not the bear), in Kings Canyon where a bear tried to break into my car (and did some damage), and lots of bears in Yosemite Valley. Fortunately all were black bears, not brown grizzle bears.

(In the journals of Lewis and Clark they describe their first encounter with a grizzle - they, of course, shot it. It got mad. They shot it again. It got madder. In the journals they said they decided it was a bad idea to shoot at grizzles.)

Fortunately banana slugs rarely take up arms - I have heard that they can attack without warning.

Deer - tasty when properly prepared. I promise I won't eat 'em if they would stop eating my garden.

And we have mountain lions around the house in Santa Cruz. One came to our front door - and I mean right up to the knob. And we hear them - they sound like a cross between a human baby and a domestic kitty cat.

I've run across rattle snakes - fortunately all had working rattles.

Coyotes came through our camp of 3rd graders in Joshua Tree; buffalo wandered through the camp when we took those 3rd graders to Catalina island.

The scariest was when a red tail hawk decided it did not want me in my garden. It came at me, talons extended, and flew within inches of my face.

In my part of PA Red & Grey foxes, Deer, Skunks, Groundhogs, Turkeys, Canadian Geese, Black & Turkey vultures, Hawks and Eagles are spotted. One year, around the 21st of December it was averaging in the 70's even! On day, on the 24th of December, in fact...I saw a grouping of does - 12 of em, really really! All were hanging out in the back parking lot near the huge garbage deposal! My fave moment on the way to work on morning (I start work in Collegeville at 7am, live in Hatfield, which is a good 45min drive! Leave home at 6:15, when there are few drivers, but lots of animals!)..was while driving along some back roads when I spotted a set of five black vultures, sitting on the ground under a tree and staring blankly at a set of five Canada geese across the road directly opposite them also under a tree.....it was like the Vultures were all 'we're just birds, like you guys, sitting under a tree - we're harmless!' and the geese were like 'Oh PLEASE! How dumb do you Vultures think we are??'

....and the time I spotted a groundhog hanging on the curb at the side of the road watching the traffic go by like 'ok, not yet safe to cross the road...too much noisy smelly killer things going past'

There are way more animals where I live now than there were on the South Shore of Long Island in Mastic Beach where I used to live....

I could infodump a laundry list of critters—but for multiple encounters, the winner seems to be snakes.

I posted in this space a couple of years ago when I looked down and saw one less than a foot away from where I was standing on my patio. It was brightly colored so I wasn't sure, but it turned out to be not a threat (rat snake).

When my parents were still alive, snakes turned up in their pool enclosure within a week of each other—the black snake I fished out of the pool (probably saving its life), then some kind of brownish snake with a diamond pattern on it that got trapped in the enclosure (managed to stay out of the pool, unlike the other one) and resisted my attempts to shoo it along with the pool skimmer. It struck it a couple of times. Dad finally told me to poke the screen loose in a corner, and it left. Their little dogs wanted to halp. NOPE.

The most 😳 one was probably the time I was day-sleeping and staggered from the bed to the bathroom to placate my bladder... sat down and noticed some pink cloth from my robe had fallen on the floor. WTF? I was past the point of no return when I realized it wasn't cloth. Finished up ASAP and gingerly tiptoed out the bathroom door. Fortunately Mr. Stranger was up. The snake was kind of lethargic, so we were able to get it in a long-handled dustpan and get it outside. I kinda wish I had wet it down or something, but I was just freaked. out. and wanted it out of my house. Still have little idea how it got in. The exhaust fan is the likeliest culprit.

Maybe someday we'll find the box with the "what it means when a particular critter keeps turning up" book in it.

@Lisa Stranger

spiritualgleam.com/what-does-i…

The serpent is a powerful symbol of renewal, urging you to let go of what holds you back and embark on a journey of self-discovery.

What Does it Mean Spiritually When You See a Snake?

Seeing a snake spiritually signifies transformation and renewal, urging you to shed old patterns, embrace change, and embark on self-discovery.

^{Muhammad Zahid (SpiritualGleam)}

Saw a black bear family crossing the road once when I was a teen on a family road trip up to Canada. The bears definitely had the right of way!

Back when I lived in Rockford (called the "Forest City" because of its many mature trees) we regularly had raccoons scrambling around in the trees at night especially when the moon was full. We also had some good-sized sewer rats who came out on Fourth of July night because of the noise from the massive municipal fireworks display.

A favorite memory: one evening I went out on the porch to call in my indoor-outdoor cat and when I said "kitty, kitty, kitty!" a little narrow white face appeared quizzically peeking around the corner. It was a possum. I promptly told it "YOU'RE not the kitty!" and it disappeared.

When I lived in a small rural town we had occasional deer running through the streets and I rescued toads that got stuck at the bottom of stairs regularly. Here in suburbia, I have seen occasional coyotes and a fox.

Ugh, bats! I woke up early one morning to pee when I lived in a duplex apartment and saw something that looked like a dark leaf above my dining room entry arch... it kind of registered as something not supposed to be there, but I was sleepy. Sat down on my bed, but then I was awake and walked back out to take a second look. I discovered it had beady little eyes and was moving its little head as as it looked down at me. Gahhhhh! A bat! I called my upstairs neighbor who came down with a tennis racket (and a hat) to escort it out the front door.

I also once encountered a disabled bat flopping on the floor when I opened up church for a rehearsal back in that rural town. I inverted a trashcan over it and called Animal Control. They said it was probably rabid.

Back in 2009, my (then) wife, two kids, and I went on the best vacation I have ever experienced, to southeast Alaska, a tour of the islands that run parallel to the coast of British Columbia. We took ferries from town to town on the islands, watching whales and seeing wildlife along the way.

The pinnacle of our trip, goth geographically and in terms of the experience, was in Juno and the park where the Mendenhall resides.

The walk from the park headquarters to the glacier is about a mile or two, and the six of us (my wife, our kids, and my wife's mother, her husband, and I) made the trek. It was awesome! Then we made the trek back.

I was with my kids (who were 10 and 7 at the time) about 50 yards ahead of my wife, her mom and step dad, when I heard her step day yell, "Just keep walking! Don't stop, and don't run!"

A brown black bear had crossed the path between us, with her two cubs. (Ain't nothing more dangerous than a bear with her cubs.) The bears proceeded to follow a path parallel to ours about 10 to 15 feet away. We walked together for the best part of a mile. It was terrifying and exhilarating and one of the best experiences of my life.

This passed over the news transom this morning:

"California bear who injured Lake Tahoe camper killed by park ranger"

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

California bear who injured Lake Tahoe camper killed by park ranger

State officials say decision to euthanize black bear with history of confronting humans was ‘not taken lightly’

^{Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)}

Just give him a ride on one of his rockets.

Thanks @Janet Logan 🏳️‍⚧️
🤔
one of those houses (where prior sightings occurred) was definitely holding me back when I let it go, and the other one arguably was... I'm kinda happy here, I hate to think this one is too

although all of those occurred before I found out I was autistic, which has been some fairly epic self discovery

I’d be screaming all the way into the next county.

@Richard turns out the "oh shit" autistic freeze (fawning?) has actually saved my bacon a few times. I can imagine some scenarios where it might get me in trouble tho.

You'd have to ask Mr. Stranger how much panic was in my voice when I got to the living room and announced that there was a snake in my bathroom 😬

(it was a small bathroom, too! I pretty much had to step over the thing to get out... still don't know how I didn't step on it coming in)