Wildlife in our midst

If you read yesterday's blog post, you know my children showed a relative lack of interest in the animals at the zoo. Perhaps their casualness is partly because seeing wildlife up close just isn't that much of a novelty for them. Here's a sampling of what we've seen in our yard in just the last 48 hours.

Remember that tiny snapping turtle we saw crossing the street a couple weeks ago? Wednesday morning, his big brother showed up on our driveway.

I've determined the turtle is of the male gender simply because I don't want to imagine the possibility - as some friends have speculated - that its purpose in my yard is to dig a nest and lay eggs. (If that was the case, I don't think it accomplished its mission. The camera and very interested six-year-old boy who I wouldn't let get any closer than this... was enough to convince the turtle to change its direction and head back to the river.)

On the smaller, cuter and furry end of the spectrum, Chip and Dale seem to have taken up residence beneath a big bush near our garage. The chipmunks have startled us a couple times when they've show up on the porch, but overall they've actually done a pretty good job cleaning up the bird seed that's dropped from the feeder before it grows into weeds. And then one of them decided the dropped seeds weren't enough.

Busted! It was pretty entertaining, I must admit, watching it scale the shepherd's hook from which the birdfeeder hangs.

Last night, we arrived home from AJ's baseball practice and, as I parked the car, I again noticed what looked suspiciously like a turtle shell. Thankfully, this time it was a painted turtle. Look in the lower left corner and you can see it, plus what I think might have been the start of a nest just behind it.

Are we being invaded by turtles? It was seven years ago this summer that we were building the house, and in all that time I've never seen a turtle on our property. And now, two different kinds in two days.

As we all stood and gawked at the reptile, Jeff happened to look up. And that's when we saw, just beyond our backyard fence...

Who needs the zoo when we can see all this right outside our door? Minus the snapping turtle, I love our wild neighbors.