.
.
.
I photographed this South American Coati from inside my kitchen. It was about 6 feet away and the picture was taken with a 100 mm lens.
Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
.
.
I photographed this South American Coati from inside my kitchen. It was about 6 feet away and the picture was taken with a 100 mm lens.Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
From my work desk, where I spend a great deal of my time facing the computer when I’m not in the field, I can see almost the entire garden and backyard of my house. While I carry on building my new website, reply to e-mails, edit pictures and perform other tasks, I am able to watch the 24 bird species who already came to feed on the seeds, fruit remains and water that we put out for them on a daily basis. In total, we have already identified 77 species that come to our house or sing nearby. There are macaws, toucans, potoos, owls, parrots, tanagers, woodpeckers. If we add up all species of the neighborhood, the number goes to 113. But here we have much more than birds.
A Wagler's Snake, one of the serpents that have already visited usin our backyard - and even showed its tongue to the house’s owner.
Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
The Tegu Lizard, three feet of length, comes crawling quietly through the lawn, sort of hidden by the shade of the trees. Much to our surprise and general perplexity for our cats, without ceremony he climbs up a step and enters our kitchen searching for a snack, some cat food scraps. I try to get up unnoticed to grab my camera and film the scene. I fail, lizard gets scared and rushes out through the door, one of our cats raises its hair watching everything but not understanding anything. Minutes later, there is our Tegu again cooling off inside the clay bowl that we use to provide water for the animals. But he is a bit too long for that container, so that his belly is submerged but there is a lot of head and tail left to the sides. Again, he is faster than me and goes away before I manage to take a picture…
So far, the only picture that we managed to take of the intruder lizard :-)Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
Some months ago we had a Giant Anteater walk past the backyard fence, at 3 PM, less than 30 feet from where I sit to work. Weeks later came the Southern Tamandua, caught in action crawling under our front gate as our car headlights gave him away. Didn’t even get scared, went into the garden and calmly climbed up a tree. Three agoutis are always around (a mother and two young that we have been watching since they were babies), as well as the coatis who every now and then pay us a visit. Completing the team we have the harmless Parrot Snake that showed up one day inside our toilet bowl and the frogs that croak all around the house. Therefore, besides birds we have accounted for 11 species of mammals and 9 reptiles around here. Our cats seem used to it and are resigned of having to share their space with so many different critters.
Southern Tamandua caught red handed uponbreaking into our garden through the front gate.
Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
No, we do not live in a remote countryside ranch. We are just one mile away from downtown Bonito, in one of the remaining forest and savanna fragments that surround the city. You can also have an animal friendly garden or porch, take some time to search the subject on the internet. The pleasure of spending your days among wildlife is simply beyond description!
The garden that makes animals happy.Click here for a bird’s eye view of us!
Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2009
.
.
.
