Backyard Wildlife

The view from my back porch is totally cool.

While I live in a very normal neighborhood with cookie cutter houses creatively arranged and decorated to look as different as possible, I also get the joy of having a pond in my backyard.

Ok, it's not totally mine, I share it with about 6 other houses. But because I don't have a neighbor directly behind me, it makes my yard seem so much more open.

Here in VA Beach the water table is so high that any time you dig a hole it fills with water. So any time a new neighborhood is built, they pull dirt from specific places to create small mounds to build the houses on and magically ponds appear where they took the dirt from.

We got lucky enough to have one of these man made ponds in our backyard.

They do plan this though, and build ducts between the man made ponds and natural ones, so we have fish in our pond. We have spent many a happy hour playing catch and release in the backyard. (No, not football).

We have caught bluegill, catfish, and bass all from our back lawn. We even caught a bluegill minnow which now resides in our aquarium.

Today is a beautiful day and we are enjoying temps right around 70*. When I stepped out to check the temp today I noticed that our pond turtles were enjoying the sun themselves on top of one of the ducts.

(Don't mind the time stamp on the pics, it's wrong).

When I crept up to take pictures of Tami and Thomas Turtle I caught the attention of a couple of ducks, who gambled, and won, that I would feed them rather than hurt them. (Though I did have very nice thoughts of red curry duck breast, yum!)

These 2 followed me right up to the back steps where I sat and fed them bread (wheat, not white).

(Yes, this is my right ear and my stocking feet).

They literally ate the bread right off of my feet.

How often do you get to feed ducks right on your back porch? It was super cool, until Toby, my ever lovin' Jack Russell Terrier, started barking from inside the house and scared them off.

We have also had geese, herrons, storks, muskrats, and more than one kind of snake in our backyard. But they tend not to stick around when we let the dogs out.

It makes me sad that we are only renting here, but since this type of pond is so common here, it is very likely that we might get something similiar when we buy a house next year.

That is something I am looking forward to very much.

Thanks for reading.

-Della