Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Creatures of the South Side

I thought I was out of the woods when September ended, but somehow October is chalking up to be just as crazy!  But, since I am trying my best to be disciplined this month I am going to write a quick post about all of the wildlife in our new hood.

No, not that wildlife!
 My first encounter was just a couple of weeks after we moved in, while starting off my new endeavors in jogging. I was on my way home from volunteering at Animal Care and Control (a long mere 1.5 mile jog from our new apartment) when I almost stepped on a snake!  Taking after my mother, I immediately went home and started the Google search to figure out what type of snake could possibly be living in the city, and determined that it was a Ribbon snake (part of the Garter snake family which, btw, I always thought was "Gardener" snake...always learning new things). Now just this morning, on my way home from boot camp, I almost stepped on another critter blending in among the falling leaves.


I had never seen this type of frog so, again, I went straight to Google to search for "green and black frog + Chicago."  This search took a little longer than expected, but eventually I stumbled on a post that looked the closest to that little guy in the picture.  Turns out he was most likely a fugitive...Oriental fire-bellied toads are apparently common pet store finds.

So we have reptiles and amphibians covered, our fair share of birds and squirrels, not to mention the wild life in our own living room.



What could be next?  Hopefully not one of these...


3 comments:

  1. We've come across a snake and several frogs, too. Strangely enough, neither dog reacted to the snake, but Mushroom definitely thought the frog was dinner.

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    1. Alfred is a squirrel man, although neither of the dogs were with me on my exotic encounters...maybe Bruce would be into frogs too? ;-)

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  2. Oh my gosh, I thought it was gardener snake too! Funny!

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