Wild SCV in your backyard

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

When you’re living, as I do, the High Density Lifestyle, you learn not only to share space with other people, but animals as well.

Here in my Newhall condo complex, for instance, we share space with a lot of animals. It’s practically the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth out there!

Just this morning, I saw this wander by my window while writing the Daily Brief:

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An opossum! A member of the marsupial family, opossums:

are opportunistic omnivores with a very broad diet. Their diet mainly consists of carrion and many individual opossums are killed on the highway when scavenging for roadkill. They are also known to eat insects, frogs, birds, snakes, small mammals, and earthworms. Some of their favorite foods are fruits, and they are known to eat avocados, apples, clementines, and persimmons. Their broad diet allows them to take advantage of many sources of food provided by human habitation such as unsecured food waste (garbage) and pet food.

And there is truth to the rumor that opossums “play possum”:

When threatened or harmed, they will “play possum“, mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. This physiological response is involuntary, rather than a conscious act: sometimes baby opossums’ brains do not react, therefore they do not “play dead”. When “playing possum”, the lips are drawn back, teeth are bared, saliva foams around the mouth, and a foul-smelling fluid is secreted from theanal glands. Their stiff, curled form can be prodded, turned over, and even carried away. The animal will regain consciousness after a period of minutes or hours and escape.

This is only the second time I’ve seen an opossum on our grounds. Frankly, they aren’t the most attractive animals, but if they keep the rodent population down, I’m all for them.

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The opossum sighting joins several other wild animal sightings I’ve enjoyed over the years here in Newhall. We once saw a coyote prowling around late in the evening outside our back window. I’ve seen a medium-sized bobcat as well. Red Shouldered hawks routinely patrol the sky above the oak trees around my condo, searching for squirrels and other rodents. Occasionally I’m lucky enough to photograph one of them.

And last year, I watched in horror and fascination as two large raccoons attempted to corral and consume a mother duck and her chicks who had made our pool their home. I don’t know what the outcome was, but the next morning I saw that two baby chicks were missing.

But one animal stands above all others for its elusiveness: (and biologists I need your help here) the common western barnyard owl, which I hear shrieking in the sky above most nights around 10 or 11pm. While walking my dogs over the years, the owl has presented himself only while flying; usually he’s just a streak of white light, followed by a shriek. I can hear him most evenings making the characteristic “Who…whooo” noise, but I’ve never seen him stationary.

Comments (16)

DubiousApril 18, 2011 at 8:59 am

When we had our outdoor bird cage (filled with zebra finches), we would often hear the soft hooting of an owl at night. When we looked out the window we could see the ghostly shape of the owl perched on top of our chimney watching the cage and “wondering” how to get at the hors d’oeuvres inside. A few times, the owl perched on top of the cage and the finches went crazy. A few claps of our hands and the owl flew off in eerie silence.

IHeartSCVApril 18, 2011 at 9:10 am

You’re likely detecting two different owls. The pale one that shrieks is a Barn Owl (they also make a clicking call in air) and the one that goes “Hu-hu-hoo…hooo, hooo” is a Great Horned Owl. The latter will readily devour the former, and both are fairly common so long as there are parks or fields nearby. There are at least another seven species of owls in Santa Clarita, but they prefer less urbanized areas.

MikeApril 18, 2011 at 10:02 am

Oh, so you’re some kind of bird expert now?

spineflower2April 18, 2011 at 2:40 pm

No, he just gives a hoot.

KLBApril 18, 2011 at 9:21 am

That opossum is so cute. The reason you haven’t seen your owl stationary is because he’s over at my place scaring the $hit out of me. We had an owl incident a few months back at four effin o’clock in the morning. At least I think it was an owl. It sounded like a human saying WHO WHO. It even freaked out the dogs. After I poked the hubby in the ribs, then punched him, then kicked him, he finally woke up and got out of bed to see where the noise was coming from. The freak actually opened the slider to the back yard. Are you kidding me?! We either have a possessed owl in the back or there is some crazy person in our yard making owl noises and you’re opening the door?! The whooing finally stopped and we haven’t heard it since. If it was an owl, it wasn’t like any owl I’ve ever heard.

Gang FangApril 18, 2011 at 9:41 am

Most bizarre wildlife sighting for me was last summer. After a family gathering, we all decided to go on a small hike up a nearby access road. Halfway up, a half dozen deer ran across the road only about 10 feet away. Within seconds of them running across the road, we all heard a loud sound about halfway up the hill from whence they came. Sure enough, a large mountain lion was perched there. It took off as soon as we all saw it, as we all instinctively closed the wagons around the smaller children with us. The deer continued on, right through a neighbors backyard, across a major street, and up into the mountains again. Crazy. Never before or since have I spotted a mountain lion out here, but tons of coyotes, hawks, snakes, quail, and our resident turkey vulture condor thingys love circling the pool all summer whenever we BBQ. Wanna see a bobcat out here, never have.

lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 10:16 am

I’ve seen a bobcat, Gang Fang; thought it was just a big cat until I got 2 calls from different neighbors warning us that it was in fact a bobcat. We have a great view of a hill right under the Summit. We often see rabbit, owls, hawks, turkey vultures (UGLY) and coyotes. The scariest encounter I had with coyotes was about 4 years ago. One morning while walking my dogs back home, as I turned down the street (I live at the end of a cul-de-sac) there were 3 coyotes in my front yard. Actually, 2 were in my yard and 1 was on the sidewalk just before the paseo. One was on my grass keeping watch, as was the one on the sidewalk, while the 3rd was trying to get to a cat in our eucalyptus tree. I didn’t know what to do, I walked down the middle of the street and the one on the sidewalk started walking very slowly towards us! I walked backwards with both my dogs in tow, and stood freaked out. Of all days, a parking patrol was in our ‘hood’ and I told her the situation. She told me to stay on the corner while she drove down the street to scare them away. As we stood there we heard her horn honking repeatedly. We walked (carefully) around the corner and saw her car at the end (across from my house) with the door open. We walked toward her vehicle only to have her come out and put her hand up. She yelled for me to quickly get them into the house, NOT in the backyard! After I did and went back outside, she pointed up the hill and sure enough, there they were (2 of them) just sitting and staring, and waiting….. Scary stuff! They were hungry no doubt, and that cat might have been the most decent meal they would have had in awhile. Turned out it was my next door neighbors cat which eventually made its way across our roof, to their tree and stayed there ALL DAY. It was not going to move. Even when my neighbor came home, it did not want to move. It eventually did, and they kept the cat indoors after that. Biggest problem we have around our ‘hood’ are skunks. Often at night you can see them just cruising around the front yards, while we hope that a neighbors dog doesn’t frighten them into emitting that hideous odor. The most beautiful species I view often, is the red tailed hawk. Love to watch them soar. Oddest sighting; an escaped Emu. It was just standing there on the hill taking in the view. Turns out it was missing from one of the local animal rescues. Also, about a week after the 94 earthquake, there was a crane on the hill. Not sure where that one came from. Yes, we have adapted to sharing our neighborhood with many of natures species and have been on alert more than once, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and I’m glad we were able to raise our children in this neighborhood/city, wildlife and all.

Timothy Myers SR.April 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Lvogel: When one sees a coyote or other predator the LAST thing to do is to back away. People need to holler, throw rocks or whatever to get the coyote to move off and acknowledge humans as ALPHA. In the Midwest there was never a problem with humans and coyotes (or raccoons for that matter) because they were legal to hunt. The animals are intelligent and the quickly associate the scent of humans with the scent of gunpowder and death, so they give both a wide berth.

lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 1:47 pm

Actually Timothy Myers SR., the ‘parking patrol officer’ said that when she drove down our street they remained on my lawn/sidewalk. Even when she honked the horn twice, they didn’t run. It wasn’t until she honked and drove a few more feet with her door open, did they move and she said that was in a slow and hesitant manner. My dogs, even though one was 80 pounds of sweet, loving gentleness, would have been their breakfast/brunch/lunch and perhaps dinner, I’m sure of it. We stood for several seconds watching the one coyote trying to get up the tree, and even ‘Flip’ (the gentle giant) was scared and backing up. Of course my smaller one wanted a piece of them. I’m not sure why, but there doesn’t seem to be fear in some coyotes around here. What I sense from many of the coyotes I’ve encountered (this wasn’t the first, and I have done exactly what you’ve indicated on occassion and instructed my boys to do the same) is they like to challenge and seem to not care that there are humans amongst them. One time while my son and I were walking in the Summit ravine, there was one lone coyote and with both of us yelling, waving our arms and tossing rocks and branches at it, it was not really intimidated. In fact, it would run a few steps, stop and laugh at us, then a few more, turn and stick it’s tongue out at us and ended up just sauntering away whistling some little ditty neither one of us could figure out. Maybe I should carry some gunpowder with me. Oh wait, this is the ‘burbs’ and coyotes from these parts don’t know that smell, thankfully.

IHeartSCVApril 18, 2011 at 2:40 pm

I think the coyote people agree with Tim. I just found this–pretty interesting: http://bit.ly/dIrVe6 They go through dozens of cases of coyotes attacking people in Southern California, and the usual resolution is a couple get shot or trapped/euthanized, and the others change their behavior to be more wary of humans.

lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 3:24 pm

Interesting paper, IHeartSCV. Thanks for the post. Actually, someone once recommended a starter pistol (as mentioned in the article) and I was told that trappings don’t happen unless there has been serious damage (perhaps injury) from the coyote(s). I told a neighbor a few years ago not to put food out for her dog. She would leave the bowl outside with food in it, even though her dog was inside. Sure enough she woke up to find a coyote had jumped her wall and was eating the food.

Lori RivasApril 18, 2011 at 12:01 pm

FYI: opossums do not carry rabies On a recent cloudy day, we had opossums hanging in our backyard, driving our dogs cuh-razy. Needing to let my dogs out to do business, but not wanting to risk a rabies bite, I called animal control, who told me that (here’s the fun fact) opossums do not carry rabies.

LindaApril 18, 2011 at 12:39 pm

Sadly, I passed a dead possum in the road this morning. They just can’t move quickly enough to get out of the way of traffic here, although I think some people try to hit them and the squirrels who suffer the same fate. I was unnerved shortly after we moved into current home when I came face to face with a couple of coyotes right in front of our place while walking our dog. We had been warned that they have a regular path there. I yelled and stomped my feet, but they were unfazed, backing up only a few feet and then planting themselves firmly. I was happy to make it back inside with our feeble little dog intact. I later went back out and threw rocks at them, but they were inspired only to slowly walk away.

Jane DApril 18, 2011 at 1:20 pm

My favorite SCV animal story is the bear who managed to escape SCV’s finest by going into Frosty’s Christmas Tree Farm and from there into the riverbed. Capt. at the time took a lot of grief over that.

Lori RivasApril 18, 2011 at 4:56 pm

Oh, I remember that! That was in ’99 or ’00, wasn’t it? I had walked to Old Orchard park with my then 3yo and 1yo, and someone told me that there was a bear in the wash, and I was a little nervous, walking home, as the paseo crossed over the wash.

Mr PerezApril 18, 2011 at 9:25 pm

I guess everyone forgets the black bear that was sighted at Alta Madera and Rancho Adobe and then eventually got hit on the 5 back in 2009. I also talked to the vet in Granary Square and there was a lady at Henry Mayo whose Yorkie Terrier was attacked by coyotes prior to that.

DubiousApril 18, 2011 at 8:59 am
When we had our outdoor bird cage (filled with zebra finches), we would often hear the soft hooting of an owl at night. When we looked out the window we could see the ghostly shape of the owl perched on top of our chimney watching the cage and “wondering” how to get at the hors d’oeuvres inside. A few times, the owl perched on top of the cage and the finches went crazy. A few claps of our hands and the owl flew off in eerie silence.
IHeartSCVApril 18, 2011 at 9:10 am
You’re likely detecting two different owls. The pale one that shrieks is a Barn Owl (they also make a clicking call in air) and the one that goes “Hu-hu-hoo…hooo, hooo” is a Great Horned Owl. The latter will readily devour the former, and both are fairly common so long as there are parks or fields nearby. There are at least another seven species of owls in Santa Clarita, but they prefer less urbanized areas.
MikeApril 18, 2011 at 10:02 am
Oh, so you’re some kind of bird expert now?
spineflower2April 18, 2011 at 2:40 pm
No, he just gives a hoot.
KLBApril 18, 2011 at 9:21 am
That opossum is so cute. The reason you haven’t seen your owl stationary is because he’s over at my place scaring the $hit out of me. We had an owl incident a few months back at four effin o’clock in the morning. At least I think it was an owl. It sounded like a human saying WHO WHO. It even freaked out the dogs. After I poked the hubby in the ribs, then punched him, then kicked him, he finally woke up and got out of bed to see where the noise was coming from. The freak actually opened the slider to the back yard. Are you kidding me?! We either have a possessed owl in the back or there is some crazy person in our yard making owl noises and you’re opening the door?! The whooing finally stopped and we haven’t heard it since. If it was an owl, it wasn’t like any owl I’ve ever heard.
Gang FangApril 18, 2011 at 9:41 am
Most bizarre wildlife sighting for me was last summer. After a family gathering, we all decided to go on a small hike up a nearby access road. Halfway up, a half dozen deer ran across the road only about 10 feet away. Within seconds of them running across the road, we all heard a loud sound about halfway up the hill from whence they came. Sure enough, a large mountain lion was perched there. It took off as soon as we all saw it, as we all instinctively closed the wagons around the smaller children with us. The deer continued on, right through a neighbors backyard, across a major street, and up into the mountains again. Crazy. Never before or since have I spotted a mountain lion out here, but tons of coyotes, hawks, snakes, quail, and our resident turkey vulture condor thingys love circling the pool all summer whenever we BBQ. Wanna see a bobcat out here, never have.
lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 10:16 am
I’ve seen a bobcat, Gang Fang; thought it was just a big cat until I got 2 calls from different neighbors warning us that it was in fact a bobcat. We have a great view of a hill right under the Summit. We often see rabbit, owls, hawks, turkey vultures (UGLY) and coyotes. The scariest encounter I had with coyotes was about 4 years ago. One morning while walking my dogs back home, as I turned down the street (I live at the end of a cul-de-sac) there were 3 coyotes in my front yard. Actually, 2 were in my yard and 1 was on the sidewalk just before the paseo. One was on my grass keeping watch, as was the one on the sidewalk, while the 3rd was trying to get to a cat in our eucalyptus tree. I didn’t know what to do, I walked down the middle of the street and the one on the sidewalk started walking very slowly towards us! I walked backwards with both my dogs in tow, and stood freaked out. Of all days, a parking patrol was in our ‘hood’ and I told her the situation. She told me to stay on the corner while she drove down the street to scare them away. As we stood there we heard her horn honking repeatedly. We walked (carefully) around the corner and saw her car at the end (across from my house) with the door open. We walked toward her vehicle only to have her come out and put her hand up. She yelled for me to quickly get them into the house, NOT in the backyard! After I did and went back outside, she pointed up the hill and sure enough, there they were (2 of them) just sitting and staring, and waiting….. Scary stuff! They were hungry no doubt, and that cat might have been the most decent meal they would have had in awhile. Turned out it was my next door neighbors cat which eventually made its way across our roof, to their tree and stayed there ALL DAY. It was not going to move. Even when my neighbor came home, it did not want to move. It eventually did, and they kept the cat indoors after that. Biggest problem we have around our ‘hood’ are skunks. Often at night you can see them just cruising around the front yards, while we hope that a neighbors dog doesn’t frighten them into emitting that hideous odor. The most beautiful species I view often, is the red tailed hawk. Love to watch them soar. Oddest sighting; an escaped Emu. It was just standing there on the hill taking in the view. Turns out it was missing from one of the local animal rescues. Also, about a week after the 94 earthquake, there was a crane on the hill. Not sure where that one came from. Yes, we have adapted to sharing our neighborhood with many of natures species and have been on alert more than once, but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and I’m glad we were able to raise our children in this neighborhood/city, wildlife and all.
Timothy Myers SR.April 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Lvogel: When one sees a coyote or other predator the LAST thing to do is to back away. People need to holler, throw rocks or whatever to get the coyote to move off and acknowledge humans as ALPHA. In the Midwest there was never a problem with humans and coyotes (or raccoons for that matter) because they were legal to hunt. The animals are intelligent and the quickly associate the scent of humans with the scent of gunpowder and death, so they give both a wide berth.
lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Actually Timothy Myers SR., the ‘parking patrol officer’ said that when she drove down our street they remained on my lawn/sidewalk. Even when she honked the horn twice, they didn’t run. It wasn’t until she honked and drove a few more feet with her door open, did they move and she said that was in a slow and hesitant manner. My dogs, even though one was 80 pounds of sweet, loving gentleness, would have been their breakfast/brunch/lunch and perhaps dinner, I’m sure of it. We stood for several seconds watching the one coyote trying to get up the tree, and even ‘Flip’ (the gentle giant) was scared and backing up. Of course my smaller one wanted a piece of them. I’m not sure why, but there doesn’t seem to be fear in some coyotes around here. What I sense from many of the coyotes I’ve encountered (this wasn’t the first, and I have done exactly what you’ve indicated on occassion and instructed my boys to do the same) is they like to challenge and seem to not care that there are humans amongst them. One time while my son and I were walking in the Summit ravine, there was one lone coyote and with both of us yelling, waving our arms and tossing rocks and branches at it, it was not really intimidated. In fact, it would run a few steps, stop and laugh at us, then a few more, turn and stick it’s tongue out at us and ended up just sauntering away whistling some little ditty neither one of us could figure out. Maybe I should carry some gunpowder with me. Oh wait, this is the ‘burbs’ and coyotes from these parts don’t know that smell, thankfully.
IHeartSCVApril 18, 2011 at 2:40 pm
I think the coyote people agree with Tim. I just found this–pretty interesting: http://bit.ly/dIrVe6 They go through dozens of cases of coyotes attacking people in Southern California, and the usual resolution is a couple get shot or trapped/euthanized, and the others change their behavior to be more wary of humans.
lvogelApril 18, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Interesting paper, IHeartSCV. Thanks for the post. Actually, someone once recommended a starter pistol (as mentioned in the article) and I was told that trappings don’t happen unless there has been serious damage (perhaps injury) from the coyote(s). I told a neighbor a few years ago not to put food out for her dog. She would leave the bowl outside with food in it, even though her dog was inside. Sure enough she woke up to find a coyote had jumped her wall and was eating the food.
Lori RivasApril 18, 2011 at 12:01 pm
FYI: opossums do not carry rabies On a recent cloudy day, we had opossums hanging in our backyard, driving our dogs cuh-razy. Needing to let my dogs out to do business, but not wanting to risk a rabies bite, I called animal control, who told me that (here’s the fun fact) opossums do not carry rabies.
LindaApril 18, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Sadly, I passed a dead possum in the road this morning. They just can’t move quickly enough to get out of the way of traffic here, although I think some people try to hit them and the squirrels who suffer the same fate. I was unnerved shortly after we moved into current home when I came face to face with a couple of coyotes right in front of our place while walking our dog. We had been warned that they have a regular path there. I yelled and stomped my feet, but they were unfazed, backing up only a few feet and then planting themselves firmly. I was happy to make it back inside with our feeble little dog intact. I later went back out and threw rocks at them, but they were inspired only to slowly walk away.
Jane DApril 18, 2011 at 1:20 pm
My favorite SCV animal story is the bear who managed to escape SCV’s finest by going into Frosty’s Christmas Tree Farm and from there into the riverbed. Capt. at the time took a lot of grief over that.
Lori RivasApril 18, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Oh, I remember that! That was in ’99 or ’00, wasn’t it? I had walked to Old Orchard park with my then 3yo and 1yo, and someone told me that there was a bear in the wash, and I was a little nervous, walking home, as the paseo crossed over the wash.
Mr PerezApril 18, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I guess everyone forgets the black bear that was sighted at Alta Madera and Rancho Adobe and then eventually got hit on the 5 back in 2009. I also talked to the vet in Granary Square and there was a lady at Henry Mayo whose Yorkie Terrier was attacked by coyotes prior to that.