MagiStream

Hello, I live in South Africa, and we have many nature reserves, I absolutely adore animals, and will find any way to be in contact, see, or anything with animals. I hate poachers, and wish they would all just disappear, or get stuck in their own traps. I've been to numerous large nature reserves, like the Etosha in Namibie, Botswana (which the whole country could count as a nature reserve), and to the Kruger Park in South Africa a couple of times, that also includes smaller nature reserves, like Ado Elephant Park ect. We where to the Kruger Park this year; I had my birthday there, it was awesome. There we saw so many animals, but it took us seven days to find lions, we saw a leopord (It is the first time I saw one with my own two eyes.) THere where a whole bunch of elephants, and baby ones, they where so cute. Aswell as some rhino's , I really wanted to see the black one, but sadly we only found the white rhino's. And ofcource there was the usual buck and bird and crocodile and hippo, ect. (It is too many to name) but I had so much fun, and I can't wait for next year, then we are going to Mozambiek.

An entire flock of black-capped chickadees outside work today. The red-tailed hawk whose territory I live in has gone for the winter.
The squirrels are out in droves looking for winter food.
I had wanted to plant some crocus and daffodil bulbs, but it's too late this year. Maybe in February or March I'll plant some bulbs indoors, and transplant them outside after they've bloomed.

LightningDragon wrote:There's a pair of pileated woodpeckers that come by our house about this time every year, and I saw 'em yesterday. They're some big birds, and I can't wait until they come back next year. c:

Oh nice. Their range apparently is around her, but all I've ever seen are Downy Woodpeckers. Which are considerably smaller.

We have a small patch of mature woods next to my house and a much larger one with a pond on the next street over so we have a ton of wildlife out and about. Turkeys are the most common animals we see as there's a fairly large flock of them living in the neighborhood. Deer aren't as common but we do see them. A skunk lives nearby and I often see it in the front yard when I come home from work at night in the summer. No I've never been sprayed. In fact, it was actually friends with my (now deceased) indoor/outdoor cat. We used to joke that it was because they were both black and white animals so the skunk couldn't tell the difference, lol.

There are a pair of foxes around as well; I saw them both once after a winter storm, playing in the snow not thirty feet from the window. They were adorable. I've seen one of them alone a couple times since then. I am also positive I saw a coyote on our street once but never again since. Our bird feeders have occasionally been mauled by the local black bear--we've never actually seen it but nothing else could destroy a metal pole quite so thoroughly. There was a moose once, running up and down the street. They aren't normally this far south though. Not long ago I also heard of a possible fisher cat in the area, never saw it but something (either it or the foxes) killed all of the neighbor's chickens in a very short time period. Several neighborhood cats have also disappeared over the past few years, and something killed my other neighbor's beautiful Persian, Winston, around the same time when they first started disappearing. (My cat did not die from anything related to being an outdoor cat, for the record.)

Oh and rabbits. No idea if they are truly wild or someone released them, but every once in awhile in the early morning we see rabbits in various yards on the street. I'm assuming they're wild since we've been seeing them for years.

And of course the usual mix of squirrels, both red and gray, chipmunks, mice, toads and snakes. I've only ever seen garter snakes but there are about 10 species native to the area. Fortunately the only dangerous one, the timber rattler, is very rare and does not occur in this particular part of the state.

Birding is an off and on hobby of mine and we do like to feed the wild birds. I have actually seen every single species of woodpecker that occurs in this area, including pileateds on several occasions. Never seen an owl though I know they're around. Have seen vultures, including a particularly up close encounter with a trio of them about two years ago. Hawks are very common as well, and bats in the summer.

ETA: Here's a picture of one of our more common residents, a wood frog.

Spoiler

Got to go on a hike with the dogs the other day, around Shoshone falls. Mostly we saw birds, although the dogs did chase something on the ground, probably a rabbit.
I thought I saw (and heard) a pair of turkey vultures- big dark birds with widely spread primaries, but upon looking up their calls, I realized that it was actually a pair of golden eagles! Plus, it would be late in the season for the vultures, they've generally migrated by now. The eagles were flying close to the face of the canyon cliff, and chirping up a storm. It was quite cool.
I saw a bunch of pigeons and coots, and several red shafted flickers. I heard canyon wrens and red winged blackbirds, but didn't actually see any of them.
Then... there was the mystery bird.
It was some kind of diving duck type bird that was smaller than the coots, had reddish heads, swam extremely low in the water, had a long, but dull colored beak, no noticeable crest. They had long necks, like a grebe. Their bodies were grey/brown but had several (3 maybe?) small white patches along the sides towards the tail (probably wing feathers). I saw a pair of them, and can't figure out what they were. I'm thinking maybe immature hooded mergansers, but I'm just not sure.

It sounds like some sort of Merganser to me.

I saw this strange thing in the pond today, it looked like a bird's head and long neck, but protruding from the water. It'd go under for a while, then come back up farther along the pond and look around, then go back under. I didn't get a good look at it, but my mom and I agreed it had a beak. ANyone know what it could have been?

I'm in louisiana in north america, if that helps

Loons and Cormorants immediately spring to mind as both are diving birds who tend to do that. And both do live down there. There are apparently a variety of ducks and geese that live there, but I don't know about their diving/underwater swimming prowess to know if they could do that.
Can you remember anything else about it? Was the bill perfectly straight or was there a hook at the end? How low did it ride in the water(could you see any of the body/how much or was it just a head)? Anything about it's colour or patterns.

it looked blue/grey ish and the bill was straight. I couldn't see any of the body, just the head and neck.