We live in a forest on the side of a small mountain. But our house is also just five minutes or so from the Castlegar’s downtown, so sharing our acreage with wildlife still seems rather surprising to me.
Recently we’ve been visited by a few reminders of where we live.
Elk on a Tuesday
First came the Elk. Four very handsome males came down the somewhat ‘under construction’ side of the mountain to our south. I failed to get a decent picture, but our neighbours down the main subdivision road to the east of us captured a couple of lovely images.
These are the first deer of any kind I’ve seen in our subdivision, although I’ve seen a few while driving nearby. Irene in contrast has observed a couple of deer in our subdivision, so they are definitely nearby: just rather secretive.
Turkeys on a Sunday
We usually see flocks of wild turkeys come through our yard a handful of times each year. I can also fairly frequently hear them calling, primarily from the trees to the south of us.
But this past Sunday we had a special treat: babies! And one particularly tiny little guy who really wasn’t a lot bigger than a robin. They seemed to be picking up some seed I had discarded from a mouse ‘horde’ I’d found in the garage.
I love living in a place where the wildlife comes to visit. Correction: it is really their home, we are the ones just visiting.
Although there are reintroduced elk in the NC mountains, I have never encountered them. The only time I’ve seen wild elk was on a visit to my brother’s place in Marin County, CA where there are elk everywhere because of Pt. Reyes National Seashore. We do get wild turkeys here all the time though and lots and lots of white tail deer.
There are a couple of established herd of elk in our area, Lou, but the main one is on the other side of the river from us. I’ve noticed deer prints in the past amongst the trees in our acreage subdivision before: based on size, they could have been elk. But to finally see the ‘bachelors’ walk by was a treat.
I love seeing the wildlife living near our home: I suppose that was one of the reasons I wanted we moved to this area a few years ago after living in the more ‘urban’ lower mainland of B.C for 20 years or so. But even there we had our racoons and opossums that visited the yard. Knowing that at least some animals are doing ‘okay’ despite our sprawl warms my heart.