Biological Diversity Day|Pad Patter Wed May 22nd

[Angela Toucan]

Hello, happy Wednesday. My teenagers will both be home soon and we will be celebrating my husband's birthday. The UN has marked today as the International Day for Biological Diversity. One of the things I notice when I'm browsing the gallery is the biodiversity of the different areas we live in around the world. I see photos of cacti and palm trees - all considered exotic here and only really seen in movies. I also see photos of birds and animals in people's gardens that I've never seen outside books. It makes me wonder. Are the trees and creatures we see as normal in our town "exotic" to people in other places?

So what is normal for you to see in your area? The trees, flowers, and animal life?

In my town there are a lot of Birch, Beech, Sycamore and Plum Trees. The hedge rows are full of blackberries. Bluebells coat the woodland floor, and forget-me-nots peek through the grass and clover on the road sides. Common birds are chaffinches, sparrows, wagtails, magpies and pigeons, with the occasional sparrow hawk. Found a grouse in our garden last year - that was a big surprise. The nearby open fields have now been built on and we guess that was previously it's habitat. Down by the river and on the balancing pools the coots, mallards, common duck and Canadian geese flock. Occasionally we'll see some swans - keep your distance from those if there are cygnets about they get proactively aggressive protecting their young. Squirrels steal the fruit from our trees, and the foxes and hedgehogs come out after dusk.

 

[StefanieS]

Common birds for me include doves, pigeons, Hadedas, crows, wagtails, Egyptian Geese and sparrows. Occasionally we will see hawks and swallows.
Flowers would include aloes, proteas, roses, frangipani, strelizia, & clivias.
Trees are usually evergreen, pine trees, syringa, palm trees etc, then we have oak trees and other deciduous trees that lose their leaves, but seldom do we have the pretty "fall" coloured leaves, no yellow. oranges and reds.
The Western Cape, South Africa has a very small yet very diverse biodiversity. Our Mediterranean climate keeps things interesting.

 

[IntenseMagic]

Our common birds are robins, blue jays, cardinals, woodpeckers, sparrows, chickadees, crows, hawks, turkey, geese, ducks, and an occasional eagle. I'm sure there are others as well.
Visiting our yard from time to time are deer, bears, opossums, skunks, squirrels, and snakes.
Around our house we have pine trees, oak, beech, elm, redbud, dogwood, spruce, and probably some I don't know the names of lol. I also have black raspberry bushes and honeysuckle bushes.

 

[umyesh]

Our common birds are robins, sparrows and ducks. I’m sure there are more but my knowledge of birds is minimal.
I grew up with an apple tree, a sweet cherry tree and an Italian plum tree. I can’t tell you what our current trees are; I should look that up. They have pretty blossoms but they stink unfortunately. We had two peach trees but had to remove them to level our yard to prevent flooding.
We have deer, elk, moose, bears and cougars in the mountains nearby but never in our neighborhood. I’ve seen a few raccoons and smell skunk occasionally.
This thread made me realize how many plants and birds I can’t identify.

 

[dawnmarch]

Well, I know we have unusual plants and birds because I live in the Sonoran Desert. I guess our most iconic plant is the Saguaro Cactus which only exists here. We get a lot of different kinds of birds that are migrating through a couple times of year but for our local birds we have a Cactus Wren, a Gila Woodpecker and the Roadrunner that are pretty unusual in other places. Another fun bird is the Peach Faced Lovebird -- a beautiful parrot that has become established here after having been accidentally released to the wild through some events in the past. We mostly do not have "normal" trees like maples and elms and that sort of thing -- we tend to have shorter, scrubbier trees like the Mesquite and Palo Verde.