Casual Conversation

Birds: rufous horneros, rufous thrushes, kiskadees. Including a kiskadee fight, it was fucking hilarious - picture two males encircling each other, as if they were in a ring, surrounded by females. (Picture a 40yo surrounded by two cats, watching them fight through the window. It was like this.) Once in a blue moon I see a hummingbird, they used to visit me more often before the hail killed my fuchsia.

Cool arthropods: a silver argiope once, I "adopted" her but she had children and passed away, RIP Kumoko. My basil is always gathering some native bees. I guess for most people gaucho spiders count?

Mammals: only the usual. Cat, dog, cat, human, cat... ...my neighbourhood has a lot of cats, including uninvited guests.

I can't recall the last time I saw a toad. When I was a kid I had fun splashing them with water - it's harmless to the critter, but if you startle them they jump.

For reference, this is in urban South America, Cfb climate.

I live on the outskirts of an Australian city, a couple of hundred metres away from farmland and national park. Opposite me we overlook a large public open space/park.

We have a resident family of magpies. There's a few cockatoos in the large gum tree next door. There are some kookaburras living in the park who sometimes visit the trees out the front of our place. The odd eagle circling high above. Too many mynas these days. Lots of rosellas and grass parrots. A smattering of finches.

There are tons of kangaroos around. They come into the park to feed at night. During the day they retreat into the national park and we see them when out walking the dog. I've run across echidnas and red belly black snakes in the national park, but not technically seen from my window, although we were maybe 15 minutes walk from my front door.

We get the occasional blue tongue lizard visiting our backyard. I found a eastern brown snake skin in the yard once too, but didn't see its owner. One of my neighbours reported one in his backyard last spring, and my kids have spotted one in the park on the way home from school once, so we know they're around. There are rabbits around here somewhere and we regularly see them on the nature strip out front at night.

We have the usual assortment of crawlies around. Ants. Spiders. Geckos. Midges. Flies.

There are a couple of horse ajistment places nearby and a pony club. It's not uncommon to see horses being exercised through the park. Two of our neighbours own horses and ride them home occasionally.

Right this second, I can't see anything other than a chicken. It's dark and she's next to me.

The front yard is kinda mid. Occasional squirrels, some cardinals, wrens, and finches. Basic songbirds usually, but not in numbers or constant.

But the back yard? That shit is lit.

Years ago, I started planting all native stuff to let it go meadow style. While it was not entirely successful in staying native, and it's gotten outgrown since I have trouble maintaining it all, we have all kinds of stuff.

More butterflies than I can identify, rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers, chickadees, thrushes, swallows, bluebirds, cardinals, crows, the occasional hawk, all kinds of flying critters.

We got bumblebees all over, isopods, millipedes, ants, spiders (more species than I can recall, a damn book's worth), and that's just the stuff you can see from the window. Hell, some of the spiders are right on the windows lol.

It isn't all stuff you want to see, and there's critters you don't usually see out the window, but sometimes do like mice and rats. The chickens usually keep those away from the house, but they sometimes find their way in. They're beautiful, but not welcome inside. That's the price of things being wildlife friendly, you don't get to pick what moves in. You just have to control access.

We have a blacksnake that lives near one of the oaks that sometimes shows up and suns itself where you can see it from the one window. Other than that, the other reptiles stay out of sight. We have lizards, but they stay far away from the chickens, and they're so small you can't see them.

My dad actually moves his chair in his room so he can watch outside instead of the TV.

We have gotten possums coming through. One tried to set up housekeeping in the far section, but got tired of our shit after the fifth or sixth time it would creep into the coop at night and piss off the rooster. You'd see it sometimes though, when the moon was uncovered and full, piddling around in the brush.

We've seen foxes, coyotes, and raccoons as well, though none stay. I've finally fixed the fence, so the big critters like that can't get im casually any more. But we used to see them creep up towards the house, kinda sniffing after chickens. Before we had chickens, they'd just be passing through at the far end of the yard, so you'd have to be watching to catch them.

While it's beyond what you asked about, if you go outside, it's even crazier. Because all those birds know they're safe, so they do not give a fuck if you watch them. I can sit down in my chair, and they'll just be flying around, singing and fighting and being birds. The squirrels will sit on the fence waiting for me to drop something when I'm giving treats to the chickens. The birds don't even wait. We've got a family of cardinals that hops right up outside of reach and sings/chirps at us for handouts.

There's all that song, and the rustling of things in the remaining grass and brush. The bees and butterflies and regular flies and gnats and mosquitoes are all dancing in the air (until the birds get them lol). And there's always something blooming. It's worth the damn mosquitoes to sit there.

The longer you sit, the more things stop caring you're there. The one rabbit will come out and do his thing, just pausing now and then. The non cardinal songbirds will visit in little waves, doing whatever it is they're doing. There's a robin that will park on a branch maybe four feet from where I park my butt. It'll just sit there for five or ten minutes at a go, then flit away for a while, then come back.

There's some wrens that hop their tiny butts into the pecan tree and tussle around while whistling and fussing until I laugh, then they kinda squeal squawk and act all offended.

Alas, there was a cat that used to come for visits. The bluejays ran it off with the help of some crows. Poor thing didn't know what to do, and eventually stopped coming back.

Earlier today, just as the sun was going down, I could hear the shift change as some of the night birds came out. There was about fifteen minutes where all of the birds were singing so loud, the neighbor's radio got drowned out by it.

You wanna talk about a zen experience, there's nothing like just sinking into all that life for a while.