 |
|
 |
Home
Page
Personal
Data
Personal
History
At
Home
At
Work
At
Play
Other
Things
Useful
Links
The following are pictures that I took of wildlife at my house.
Click on the thumbnail images to see full sized JPEG pictures.
The pictures were taken with an Apple QuickTake 200 digital camera (and as you can see I'm not a good photographer), transferred to hard disk and touched up (mostly the pictures were lightened) using the QuickTake software, thumbnails were created using Adobe PhotoShop 4.0.1, and finally the web pages were created using Adobe PageMill 2.0 and Claris Home Page 3.0.
Birds seen around the property include bluejays, quail, owls (who can be heard regularly at night), and hawks (who nest in the eucalyptus tree behind the property, and fly around the hilltops).
This is a recent picture of the deer (a family that has grown over the years) near the back door.
A number of different animals live in harmony - here is the neighbor's cat (partially obscued) and one of the deer. See below for a closeup of a deer and peacock.
Every year, there are a couple more new baby deer that appear around the property. They grow up fast, losing their spots, and they run fast! Here is a picture of one of last year's fawn.
Lizards/geckos are quite common, and often like to sunbathe on the decking. One was even sneaky enough to come into the home through a crack, and I put the lizard in this jar to move the lizard outside.
This particular peacock is not afraid of people, and likes to sit on the deck railing. The peacock just turned up one day in Nov 1998, and decided to stay (the peafowl leave and return for periods at a time).
The peacock and other animals interact quite closely sometimes - I have seen squirrels and birds "play" with the peacock. Here is a photo of the peacock and a deer together, taken from the kitchen window.
Around mating season, several (about 5) female peahen visit the peacock. This is a particularly trying time for everyone - the peacock makes very loud cries (usually whenever he hears cars, fire engines/ambulances/police, aircraft, dogs, noisy parties next door), and he likes to chase the peahen around the decking (and the peahen often jump onto the roof to escape the peacock), and when the peacock sees his reflection in the big picture window, he attacks the window (thinking it is a rival male) and probably hurts himself (although 2 mins later, he is doing the same thing). The photo shows the peacock and some of the peahen looking for food in the back yard.
When the peacock first appeared at the house, I wasn't even sure it was a male - it didn't seem to have the traditional long colored tail feathers. Eventually the tail feathers grew and the peacock would often spread its tail feathers. It was usually hard to take a photo of this.
After mating season (and I have been told, twice a year), the peacock sheds all of its long colored tail feathers, which eventually grow back. The peacock dropped the feathers all over the place, and the more "downy" feathers are still around. I collected approx. 75 long feathers, and 25 shorter feathers from the one peacock, as shown.
Here is the peacock closer up, just before losing all his tail feathers.
Normally possums can be heard at night (they are nocturnal creatures) in the trees. But one day, two possums ( at least I think it is a possum in the picture - it has a long tail like a rat, and the tail looks like it has been used to swing from tree branches) came out to play during the day.
Occasionally raccoons can be seen skulking around the house - one even walked in through the open back door, probably attracted by the smell of food.
Snakes can be found in the hot summer months in long grass. In July 1997 I had to kill a snake that got caught under my garage roller door. It was about 4-5 feet in length, and I believe it was a non-venomous common brown garter snake.
Squirrels are very common, and like to run around on the deck railing. This particular squirrel decided to sunbathe on the roof outside a bedroom window.
While it hasn't snowed at this altitude yet (it was very close for a few days at the end of Jan 2002), there have been a few hailstorms.
Other animals seen/heard include hedgehogs. Further up Mt. Hamilton, apparently wild pigs live in the bush.
