Critters

I set the small animal trap to try and catch the squirrel that gets in Damsel’s garden and raids the bird feeders. Then this little ‘possum wandered in much to it’s dismay. Not to worry, though, it got released back into the “urban wild” shortly afterwards.

Image courtesy Damsel. Click image for hi-res.

Opossums are probably more beneficial than they are destructive in urban areas. Consider this description from the National Opossum Society:

Opossums help to maintain a clean and healthy environment. They eat all types of insects, including cockroaches, crickets, beetles, et cetera. They catch and eat rats, roof rats, mice, and they consume dead animals of all types (carrion). They like over-ripe fruit, berries, and grapes. And they think snails and slugs are a delicacy! Nature’s little Sanitation Engineers!!

Typically they go about their quiet task late at night, and you usually won’t know they were around…unless your dog (being territorial) starts barking, or you happen to take a midnight stroll when one is munching insects or snails in your yard.

All the years that I have been in California, it was not until last weekend that I saw a red dragonfly. In fact, there were red dragonflies in abundance, around the lake at the South Coast Botanic Gardens. This is one of those infrequent occasions where I got an outstanding picture (Damsel is the queen of artistic photos in our family).

I did some research and found out that this is a Ruby Meadowhawk, a variety of the suborder Anistoptera (Dragonfly). This is an excerpt from the WikiPedia page on Dragonflies:

Dragonflies typically eat mosquitoes, midges and other small insects like flies, bees, and butterflies. They are usually found around lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands because their larvae, known as “nymphs”, are aquatic. Dragonflies do not normally bite or sting humans (though they will bite in order to escape, for example, if grasped by the abdomen); in fact, they are valued as a predator that helps control the populations of harmful insects, such as mosquitoes. It is because of this that dragonflies are sometimes called “mosquito hawks.”

Little hummingbirds like this one like to browse the puffy flowers of the Chinese Lantern Bush at the Botanic Garden. I walked up to within five feet of this one and snapped this photo before it flitted away. Cute little thing – about three inches in length.