Friday Shoot out - ‘wild’ animals in my own back yard

I have a home in both Rio de Janeiro and in Nova Friburgo so I had double the options for how I might go about this week's ‘wild’ animals in my back yard;  how they have adapted to man or not.   As you can imagine the ‘wild animal’ in Rio is man and from what I hear they have not adapting well.  Last week there was, once again, gun battles between the ‘drug lords’ of two different favelas / slums that are growing too large and encroaching each on the other’s turf, and the police who try to confine the battle to the individual slum areas.   Last week the three-way gun fight(s) took out some drug runners, some police and as usual some innocents.  This was not my choice of topic.

 

It is surprising that I don’t really have ‘wild’ animals in my back yard. My yard in Nova Friburgo (Mury – Condominium Stucky) is right on the edge of a forest reserve. Of course, here that has a different meaning than it might in the USA – The view from our veranda shows the forest reserve dotted with farming & grazing areas, a large graded spot with a soccer field, and very large areas planted with eucalyptus trees. (& cars, motorcycles, barking dogs)   In this blog I talk often of Birds in Brasil because the this what I see the most. I hear monkeys, at least I think they are monkeys.   I never see them but from time to time I do see an awesome bug / spider / insect / moth / butterfly and if I’m lucky have my camera handy and before they disappear, I get a shot that is not too blurry.

 

Ants hard at work carrying flower petals 10 times their size – these guys showed up again about 20 minutes of my climbing up a hill – they were still going higher – I was done.	Fuzzy green misc. caterpillar on the driveway a three inch beetle - (I use beetle loosely - I am not a scientist) but I know 3 inches when I see it. His ancestors were in my geology book with the other first life…..
this little guy (or his descendants) live under the hand rail of the veranda – I see him several times a year	after lunch visitor in the dinning room – I think he can it jumps - ? – so I stayed back a bit….
Moved like a snail – looked like a caterpillar – outside the kitchen door	this guy had about a 5 inch wing span – that is a 6" tile he is on

wasp or hornet nest? or other beast of the forest. [SEE comments - LovelyDharma ID this for us.]
on the story of animal adapting to man’s environment these all win – I am not a chicken but I leave them alone to do their thing – they’ve been successfully around millions of years and man only 10,000 or so and loosing.

 

 

 

 

stray dogs VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This area's most dominant ‘wild’ animal are the stray dogs. We pretty much just let them be – and the local shop owners put out food and water for the ones that show up on their doorstep – Vida Boa (the good life)

misc 'wild' animals VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

and there are other random beasts – slightly different domestication levels are involved but the photos were fun! See if you can find the little lizard.