Tuesday's Sun features a good read about a coyote making the rounds in the Saybrook neighborhood, and how this is not as uncommon as you might think.
The story relates a mail carrier's run-in with the four-legged creature, and includes comment from a wildlife expert who says it's time we got used to coyotes coming into yards, onto porches, even, and eating dog food out of pet bowls.
I, for one, am not ready to accept that as normal. I like my wildlife at a distance. I've had raccoons, possums, skunks, tons of rabbits and squirrels, a wide variety of birds in my backyard. On one occasion each I've even seen a fox, what appeared to be a groundhog and what I think was a coyote.
Tell us about your favorite brush-with-wildlife story.
I heard that you were looking for wildlife sightings in neighborhoods. I live in The Huntington Hill Subdivision. On Memorial Day I was eating dinner with my family when I looked out our front door (which was open). I saw something walking down the sidewalk and thought it was to big to be a dog. I ran outside and it was a deer just walking down the sidewalk. I quickly grabbed my phone and took a picture with it which I still have. I yelled for family to come outside cause I couldn't believe it.
We live in the West Wind Subdivision and are not accustomed to seeing wildlife other than rabbits and squirrels in our fenced-in backyard.
However, one morning last summer my young son came running up to me breathlessly yelling "There's a reindeer in our backyard!". My son, a big Santa Claus fan, has also been known to see occasional elves in our house and yard so I was not sure what to expect. Sure enough, standing in our swing set right between the glider and a swing was a large female deer. My son immediately devised a plan to capture the "reindeer" and return her to the North Pole. This plan mostly consisted of "GET IT"! As I approached the deer to [get??] her, she gracefully leapt over my fence and went to play in my neighbor's swing set. Thankfully my son did not appear to be too upset.
He knows the deer will be back every December.
Amanda Wlodarczyk
I've never seen anything except chipmunks and rabbits in my yard but I do see lots of deer in the Springbrook Prairie Preserve and have even spotted them on the side of Naperville/Plainfield Road. There's something soothing about seeing one of these gentle creatures...and then there was the time I spotted a wild turkey smack dab in the middle of Naper Road. I was just glad it wasn't around Thanksgiving or he might have been a goner.