Right this second, I can’t see anything other than a chicken. It’s dark and she’s next to me.

The front yard is kinda mid. Occasional squirrels, some cardinals, wrens, and finches. Basic songbirds usually, but not in numbers or constant.

But the back yard? That shit is lit.

Years ago, I started planting all native stuff to let it go meadow style. While it was not entirely successful in staying native, and it’s gotten outgrown since I have trouble maintaining it all, we have all kinds of stuff.

More butterflies than I can identify, rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers, chickadees, thrushes, swallows, bluebirds, cardinals, crows, the occasional hawk, all kinds of flying critters.

We got bumblebees all over, isopods, millipedes, ants, spiders (more species than I can recall, a damn book’s worth), and that’s just the stuff you can see from the window. Hell, some of the spiders are right on the windows lol.

It isn’t all stuff you want to see, and there’s critters you don’t usually see out the window, but sometimes do like mice and rats. The chickens usually keep those away from the house, but they sometimes find their way in. They’re beautiful, but not welcome inside. That’s the price of things being wildlife friendly, you don’t get to pick what moves in. You just have to control access.

We have a blacksnake that lives near one of the oaks that sometimes shows up and suns itself where you can see it from the one window. Other than that, the other reptiles stay out of sight. We have lizards, but they stay far away from the chickens, and they’re so small you can’t see them.

My dad actually moves his chair in his room so he can watch outside instead of the TV.

We have gotten possums coming through. One tried to set up housekeeping in the far section, but got tired of our shit after the fifth or sixth time it would creep into the coop at night and piss off the rooster. You’d see it sometimes though, when the moon was uncovered and full, piddling around in the brush.

We’ve seen foxes, coyotes, and raccoons as well, though none stay. I’ve finally fixed the fence, so the big critters like that can’t get im casually any more. But we used to see them creep up towards the house, kinda sniffing after chickens. Before we had chickens, they’d just be passing through at the far end of the yard, so you’d have to be watching to catch them.

While it’s beyond what you asked about, if you go outside, it’s even crazier. Because all those birds know they’re safe, so they do not give a fuck if you watch them. I can sit down in my chair, and they’ll just be flying around, singing and fighting and being birds. The squirrels will sit on the fence waiting for me to drop something when I’m giving treats to the chickens. The birds don’t even wait. We’ve got a family of cardinals that hops right up outside of reach and sings/chirps at us for handouts.

There’s all that song, and the rustling of things in the remaining grass and brush. The bees and butterflies and regular flies and gnats and mosquitoes are all dancing in the air (until the birds get them lol). And there’s always something blooming. It’s worth the damn mosquitoes to sit there.

The longer you sit, the more things stop caring you’re there. The one rabbit will come out and do his thing, just pausing now and then. The non cardinal songbirds will visit in little waves, doing whatever it is they’re doing. There’s a robin that will park on a branch maybe four feet from where I park my butt. It’ll just sit there for five or ten minutes at a go, then flit away for a while, then come back.

There’s some wrens that hop their tiny butts into the pecan tree and tussle around while whistling and fussing until I laugh, then they kinda squeal squawk and act all offended.

Alas, there was a cat that used to come for visits. The bluejays ran it off with the help of some crows. Poor thing didn’t know what to do, and eventually stopped coming back.

Earlier today, just as the sun was going down, I could hear the shift change as some of the night birds came out. There was about fifteen minutes where all of the birds were singing so loud, the neighbor’s radio got drowned out by it.

You wanna talk about a zen experience, there’s nothing like just sinking into all that life for a while.

Rural france :

So many different birds, I used to know their names but did not keep up with the knowledge ;

Two cats, because they live here, but also probably the rest of the cat neighbourhood at night ;

Depending on the time of day : hedgehogs, snakes, deers and fawns, bees, wasps, mosquitoes (😡), snails, slugs, caterpillars, lots of beautiful butterflies ;

Can’t see them but they’re very close : frogs and mice ;

On the other hand, I see spiders everywhere, don’t even need to look outside…

Very rarely the neighbours’ dog(s), we do hear them throughout the day lol ;

Seldom a boar or hog and their offsprings, but they usually keep to the forest.

Right now, cicadas are having noisy orgies in the trees. Normally, it’s deer, squirrels, possums, snakes, spiders, no end of other bugs in the warm months, turkeys, raccoons, the rare bobcat, coyotes, birds of all sorts, owls, hawks, turkeys…I happen to live in the Appalachian woods. A doe dropped a newborn fawn near our fence this week. We watched it for a few hours until she came back for it. Don’t get me started on ticks.

Ospreys and buzzards and Coopers hawks and Mourning doves. I can hear the osprey in the big snag outside the office window right now.

The big snag in particular is a gathering spot. Bald eagles, and a rare Golden eagle last week. A peregrine, occasionally. Ravens and crows and Stellar jays, and woodpeckers, including Pileated and Flicker.

Hummingbirds, local and migratory. Blackbirds and different kinds of thrushes, plus all the little birds, so many species in the summer.

The Barred owls are really intense sometimes.

A large bevy of quail.

Rafts of ducks. Cormorants, when it’s stormy.

Deer are constant. Otters rarely.

Bats and dragonflies. The clouds of midges etc. are not typical anymore. We work hard to encourage pollinators but the total insect population has crashed somewhat. Fewer swallows this year.

[edit- they are so constant I forgot, we have a cottontail problem – maybe more raptors can feed here, so OK I guess?]

I have a small yard on the edge of a wooded area. We regularly get deer grazing just twenty feet from where I’m sitting. Occasionally we get groundhogs but I don’t have a good photo.

The neighbor’s cat which makes my dog lose his mind.

Excluding livestock; white tailed deer, wild turkeys, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, weasels, black bears, hawks, turkey vultures, black rat snakes, rattlesnakes, and copperhead snakes.

If I was to just look out my window?

Cats. Maybe a bird if it flew low enough. My window faces the wall of another part of the apartment building. Don’t see much looking out it.

Birds: rufous horneros, rufous thrushes, kiskadees. Including a kiskadee fight, it was fucking hilarious - picture two males encircling each other, as if they were in a ring, surrounded by females. (Picture a 40yo surrounded by two cats, watching them fight through the window. It was like this.) Once in a blue moon I see a hummingbird, they used to visit me more often before the hail killed my fuchsia.

Cool arthropods: a silver argiope once, I “adopted” her but she had children and passed away, RIP Kumoko. My basil is always gathering some native bees. I guess for most people gaucho spiders count?

Mammals: only the usual. Cat, dog, cat, human, cat… …my neighbourhood has a lot of cats, including uninvited guests.

I can’t recall the last time I saw a toad. When I was a kid I had fun splashing them with water - it’s harmless to the critter, but if you startle them they jump.

For reference, this is in urban South America, Cfb climate.

We have a family of melanistic foxes in the area. Thankfully the locals leave them be.

Hummingbirds year round, parrots in the “spring”, sea gulls, tits, egrets, rabbits, and the occasional squirrel. Also tons of neighborhood cats and dogs.

Canadian geese, crows, squirrels.

Stink Beatles and spiders, this time of year :p

All year round, magpies ravens and crows during the day, and it’s pretty common at night to see ugly (in a cute way) tiny bats zooming around. Of course there’s also the local fat cats inspecting their turf.

During summer, there’s these huge grasshoppers the size of my hand that just can’t shut up and are loud as hell. And often at night, I can see ferrets or weasels climbing walls. Oh, and there’s a insect hotel right outside my window that hosts bumblebees every year.

Can see Foxes from my parents home.