h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*barges in late*

We have a lot of invasive species in the Great Lakes. Lake Michigan also has zebra mussels, sea lampreys, alewives, round gobies and quagga mussels. IIRC most of them arrived via bilgewater from ships and barges coming up the St. Lawrence Seaway. (We have other issues, too, including a 2014 BP oil spill at the BP refinery in Whiting, IN, and occasional opening of the locks to release combined sewer overflow during severe floods like we had in 2008 and 2013).

I often see wildlife in our neighborhood, because our home is right on the riverbank and mere blocks from a large park in which the Park District and Forest Preserve District have established a wetland preserve (as much to help with the ongoing flooding issues as with wildlife restoration). Our little urban oasis attracts the usual squirrels, raccoons and opossum you see around the city, ducks and geese, rabbits, deer, skunks, coyote, frogs, and a number of turtles (including a particularly large and foul-tempered snapping turtle, which I've seen a dozen or so times and estimate to be around 30 lbs). The trees outside our windows are home to a couple of feathered families: three red-tailed hawks, and two peregrine falcons. Since we live in a dead-end street and our yard so resembles a park, we also get to fall asleep to the sounds of cicadas, katydids and frogs on summer nights, instead of just unattended car alarms, engines backfiring and gunshots.

Ooh, ooh! Do you get those tree frogs we've got right now?

There's one that's driving me nuts, because he's sandbagging me. I know it's a 'he', 'cos he's courting.

He goes 'ch-ch-ch-CHIRP'. At least for about four or five times.

THEN, just to drive me crazy, he goes 'ch-ch-ch-ch-CHIRP'. And he does it at random intervals.

It must be a secret frog code...

I don't know if they are tree frogs or other frogs. I will try to record them at night sometime before the end of summer and share.

Rumor has it we are starting to see river otters in this area again, too. I hope so!!

Hurrah for otters! They are wonderful creatures.

And about the only thing we haven't seen in our backyard. Last night, there was a possum.

We got back from our big trip to Yellowstone earlier this week and, as you can guess, we saw quite a bit of wildlife! Though I didn't bother taking many elk pictures, as we've got large herds of Roosevelt elk all around here--most of my elk pics are because I thought I saw a droopy nose (moose), or the elk were closer than I've seen them--some pics are more of the stupid tourists who are a lot closer than the 25 yards than they were supposed to be! (The rules state 100 yards away for bears and wolves (neither of which we saw) and 25 yards for everything else.) Lots of bison, including 3 separate road encounters--the first, the bison was strolling towards us in our lane, so Tom backed up about 50 yards or so before it was clear that the bison wasn't going to change direction, so we carefully went around. The second encounter, the bison was in the correct lane --would've gotten a good shot as it passed the car, except for shutter delay The third time was after dusk--saw red and blue lights, then watched a ranger vehicle chase the bison off the road! We also saw pronghorn antelope outside the park, but didn't get any photos--identification was more along the lines of, "Hm, strange looking deer... Wait, no, there's white stripes *as car is passing* Those were pronghorns!" Saw lots of Canada geese, and even some trumpeter swans--though they were too far away to attempt a picture. Saw a couple of bald eagles--one of which flew beneath where I was standing on the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Heard some coyotes after watching the Perseid meteor shower, and something carried away one of my (2-year-old, so smelly) leather sandals! Probably a coyote. Had some rodent eat a firestarter, as well...

Sounds like fun.

Mail us a picture.

Saw several vanishing pool mirages today.

No roadkills, no vultures.

There's a couple of cute little birds with green wings and yellow body feathers flitting around in one of the desert mimosas in my front yard at the mpment.

I haven't been able to identify them, but they are pretty.

A small lizard has taken up residence on the front porch.

I decided to let some alley cat sleep it off in one of my garden chairs. He seems to be very popular. I now have three cats in my backyard

Over here I also have a few cats in the garden. Latest one is a orange-ginger one. Haven't been seeing them much recently, though ...

Observation, the local birds are moving from the surrounding wilderness and agricultural areas into the better watered urbanized areas of the greater Palm Springs area, probably on account of the drought.

The deeper rooted desert trees are growing exuberantly despite the drought.

I saw a kangaroo rat bounding across the yard in 14 inch/36cm hops when I got home and pulled into the driveway last night, just at the moment of nightfall.

That's the period when kangaroo rats are usually most active, immediately after nightfall.

I've seen them make 18 inch/46cm vertical leaps with apparent ease to get in to tabletop trays of bird seed.