A New Kind of Backyard Friend!

Y'all know by now how much I've LOVED spotting wildlife in our yard ever since we moved to NC. Well I found a new type of animal to watch in our new backyard!

Do you see it? Between the slats of the deck?

How about now?

It's a gorgeous hawk! We've seen this guy a couple of times a day, flying through our yard down to the little runoff creek and up along it, searching for food. I've even seen him flying with a little snake in his mouth!


Here he is out another window.

After doing some searching online, I think he's either a Red Shouldered Hawk or Red Tailed Hawk. Both look really similar, both are commonly found in North Carolina, just one is bigger than the other. And the biggest thing they eat is chipmunks, so I don't have to be worried for the kitties. Although earlier this week when I was eating lunch out on the deck, the hawk landed on the ground pretty close to where I was, and seeing him up close--he looked to be about as big as one of our cats! It's so neat to see something that large swooping through the trees in our backyard.

I've also spotted deer in our neighborhood, crossing the road to get to the lake one night. There were 5 of them! Hopefully they'll make it over to our yard sooner or later, once I get them a new salt lick. And we have a ton of frogs or toads that like to come out at night when the road is wet. Makes driving through the neighborhood at night a challenge, weaving down the street to avoid squishing the little toads!

And finally, to wrap up my animal sightings in our new neighborhood, last week I spotted a huge heron. I was coming back from a quick hardware store run, when I saw something standing at least three feet tall next to the lake. When I pulled my car to the side, it took flight, but luckily I had my camera in my purse.

No time to adjust the white balance, but I caught the heron in flight. I just wish I could have gotten a closer shot, to show just how huge it was.

Have you experienced any neat animal sightings lately? Got any fun weekend plans? We will be finishing unpacking our kitchen, after our pantry is done (yes, the dirty pink carpet in the pantry spurred a complete pantry overhaul), crawling around in the crawlspace under our house to install a new dryer vent (the previous owners had let it vent into the crawlspace, with a broken vent for years) so we can finally do some laundry, hauling some branches and other yard debris into a more contained area, and starting to look at ideas for building a fire pit with bench built into a retaining wall. Man, I really wish weekends were longer after writing out our to do list!

Happy Friday!