Critters

So far we have seen mostly squirrels (which I still find fascinating), but I thought I would also give an idea of the birds and the things we haven't seen.

I have also seen
Canadian Geese (lots and lots and lots of them...),
sparrows (wearing their extra fluffy underwear and looking twice as fat as the kind we have in Australia),
an owl (which was very large, but I didn't get a good look at)
Gulls (again, can't see in detail)
some kind of large bird of prey
A cardinal (B pointed this out it was very exciting).

We haven't seen the Raccoons who have apparently decided our roof is a good place to sit and GROWL! When I first heard this noise I thought there were bears in the living room (I was meditating at the time) and I went and woke Ben up! I also heard some scrabbling and we told our neighbour who said we should tell the land-lord because it was probably squirrels in the walls. The landlord came and looked and said that there had been Raccoons sitting on the roof by the chimney (they like to do this to keep warm) and there was nothing we could do about it. Several people I asked said that Raccoon don't growl... But I've been searching the web this morning to try and verify that because there are a couple of very angry (and/or randy) animals on my roof snuggled up to the chimney!

So far I haven't been able to find a match for the growling sound I heard, but I did find a few other ones which were similar to the other shriller sound (perhaps I had a raccoon and a bear? ; P )

http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/raccoon.htm
http://www.terrierman.com/soundspage.htm

I hope they start purring soon instead!