Seems that we have a lot of critters these days in our backyard, and the Zs are finally beginning to pay attention. Zeke was heading out to relieve himself and spotted a bunny. Zeke gave chase, but the bunny had a pretty good head start on him and the bunny squeezed under the fence. Zeke was nice enough not to follow and head into the neighbors backyard.
Someone in our neighborhood is feeding squirrels peanuts. How do we know this? Because, we keep finding peanut shells on our deck. Wherever the squirrel is getting them from, they bring it over to our deck to eat them. Sometimes, the Zs see the critter on the deck and will give chase.
I'm not sure why, but there has been a population explosion of chipmunks in our area. I notice them in quantity when I'm riding my mountain bike on the natural surface trails. Of course, they are also in the neighborhoods, too. They like to use our split-rail fence as a chipmunk superhighway. This of course, attracts Zeke's attention and he'll chase them clear down the line.
While they're not in our backyard, there's also been a pretty significant population explosion of frogs. We can hear them at night, but haven't seen any yet. Again, when I'm leading night mountain bike rides in the regional parks, I've seen more of them this year than before. One time we saw so many, you could have sworn that we walked onto the set of "The Ten Commandments".
Aye, tis been a good year for the critters. A mild enough winter, a decent amount of rain and there seems to food for all. I saw several mice abroad in daylight this summer. A sure sign that they will be gnawing and gnashing their way in--or trying to--the house this fall. Several Ninja squirrels are doing their Kung-Fu fightin' in the yard, which distracts Zuzu to no end. Her skiwrl bark is LOUD! The frogs in our little neighborhood are singin' and the cicadas are out, too. (Zuzu loves to eat them.) I even saw a sulpher blue butterfly, and I haven't seen one of those for years. and of course, five freeping baby groundhogs and one mama in our yard. A good, fat summer for the furpeople! :grin: