Are these rats or what????

[John S Montgomery]

I remember this happening last year with the first warm up and soaking rains. All over I'm seeing road kill that looks like field rats kind of. They seem to be popping out of their winter holes awakening with the rain and warm temps. They always seem to be relative to a farm field. I just have not pulled over on rt. 47 or 30 to get a closer look. Not sure if they are actually rats. I don't like rats. I am a plumber and we have done most of our work in the city have and seen a few rats and they make me want to jump in my wifes arms and have her tell me it's ok!!! Red tail hawks and other birds of prey are probably taking advantage of this.

[Ken G]

I grew up in Chicago and lived near the Chicago river my first 11 years.

You ain't seen rats till you've seen river rats.

Some get the size of cats.

Those around here are just mice by comparison.

[John S Montgomery]

Whooa man- haa! I have heard about those. Have you noticed these things though popping up , I guess they're rats..... I was hoping some one was gonna tell me that they were not. River rats are huge from what I hear. Never spent any substantial time on the chicago river, so I never seen one. All I've seen around here is musk rats. While we are on the animal subject , have you Ken or anybody else seen any owls while on the river? Last summer the wife kids and myself were at some family function and upon arriving home I heard a strange hooooo-hoooo, a couple streets over. I just figured it was someones dog wanting to go in. The noise got closer. "Thats a fricken owl "!! I said to myself. Wife told me I drank to much wine that night. Next I heard the noise in the opposite direction. So I'm running up and down streets, through back yards trying to get a look. It must have flown away. After the wife heard it, she said it sounded like an owl. The next day , friends from the next block over show me a phone pic of an owl perched on their roof from the night before. The neighbor said it was over 2 feet tall-huuuuge. They asked me if it was strange to see one over here. I said no, not at all . We live right next to Blackberry creek and that whole area is perserved in its natural condition. I've seen heards of deer in there and when walking on the path through there one day , a pheasent ran right in front of me. I explained to my neighbor that we live in the Fox Valley and we have an abundance of flowing water systems all around us(Fox, Blackberry, Big rock creek ETC ETC.) I told them that flowing water is the support system for wild life and wild life will travel along these systems and thats why we will see different animals popping up here and there. I hope I taught them something

[Special Ed]

I have an owl that hoots every night behind my house in Oswego. I've gotten a peak at it once or twice, big sucker. I love him being in the neighborhood. Since he showed up I have not had to clean a dead mouse from the traps in my garage!

[Ken G]

Those are great horned owls.
I can make the same noise and call them to me. I've had them land in trees near me to check me out.
Around my house I have the owls, red tailed hawks and a few bald eagles that cruise by.
Can't beat that.
This year a fox showed up on the street. I'm trying to chase him off. He's spooking the wild turkeys that come to visit.

No rats on the roads where I've been traveling and I drive by a lot of fields every day. Lots of squirrels, coons and possums though.

[Special Ed]

Ken,

Get me some pictures of your wild tukeys. My wife is a city girl and thinks I am full of it when I tell her about the turkeys I see out in the area occasionally.

Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, but I just can't bring myself to hunt for sport. I like to watch the critters in their environment too much. Fishing is different to me for some reason. 99% of the fish I catch go back unharmed, and the few I do keep make so many people happy when they are fried up all crispy like.....

Damn, can ya tell I been drinkin'?




G'nite!

[Rob P]

have few by us but it seems seasonal.

Saw a great horned owl last year.

It was huge and sitting on a neighbors roof, and very loud.
Up there every night from ~9-12.
Then gone..

When it took off you could hear the woosh of the wings flapping.

[John S Montgomery]

Oh there are definetly wild turkey out here , why wouldn't they be , got everything they need. I'll tell guys at work that I had seen a wild turkey and their like "really". I've seen one a couple of times running in the field by the Nursery just east Suzys Bar& Grill. When they are running it's hard to miss them goofy bastards. They are in and around Big Rock Woods also. My son and I usually hike the area. Over the hill on the trail (we stay mostly on the low trail since to get up on the top hill you had to climb a mud slide.) However when you come down the hill on the low trail turn to your left and this will lead you to an inlet to the farm field. We then head north into a wooded area where you will see deer etc. We continue through that short stretch of woods and into another farm field that is lined with pine trees to the right and with the woods behind us.We will then jump into the pine trees past the NO-Tresspassing sign (oops). walk through there ,tons deer poops. Through out that hike we see every print in the snow you could think of. Turkey prints all over. We then walk through the pines into an opening of tall prarrie grass etc. and pine trees. Good picture taking with the snow mixed in. That area had lots of fresh turkey prints. We saw quite a few tree stands. I told my son we probably won't do this in the fall. Took the wife there one day also, she thinks I'm nuts. " John we can't go there it says no tresspassing". I simply tell her we are not hurting anything and we are not hunting so why would the guy care, thats what the sign is there for, to keep other hunters off his territory. When the wife and I popped into the opening we saw a fox trotting down a trail through the tall grass about 70 yards away, turning to check us out a few times. Sorry so long. Oh, Ken thats cool how you call the owls.

[Ken G]

About a year and a half ago we had to move out of the rental house that looked out over the wooded ravine. Place was falling apart and the landlord refused to do anything. It's been sitting empty since and is in foreclosure if any one wants one of the best lots on the block. It's a gut job inside and out, but nice lot. We moved across the street, but we're about 150 feet from the ravine. We can get the turkeys up to our front yard, but they're a lot more skittish.

We used to feed the critters. Seems like the turkeys are the offspring of the original bunch we fed. They keep coming back with their young. Everyday like clock work they would show up to feed. Up to 14 of them.

Then there was the deer. We had up to 6 in the yard at once. We can't get them to come up to the new place.

Show these to your wife. The house was a tri-level and my mother-in-laws bedroom was in the basement. She fed the critters out her window to entertain herself. That's why they came around. Through the window you could get right next to the deer and they didn't care.



Every night we had a family of 4 flying squirrels visit us. Two of them got so comfortable with us we could pet them. They disappeared a couple of years ago.



Our neighbors massive oak collapsed a couple of years ago and these two guys fell out of it and were abandoned. We kept them for a couple of days and handed them over to a place in Kane County.



The turkeys were the hardest to get pictures of and it was with my older crappier camera. They are always moving. It's rare to get them to sit still.





I've only gone out squirrel hunting the last few years because of circumstances. No time or money. That may finally start changing. If the things didn't taste so good, I may have second thoughts. But I prefer them over anything I can get in a store.

[Fishin Musician]

Grandma Summers from Macon Missoura... Thats how she said, it made a burgundy squirrel stew that was delicious, its been awhile since I ate a tree rat... Thats what my MOM called them(LOL) I used to see a horned owl down in the tree by Mooseheart almost every night around dusk, then it was visiting for a bit down by our silver maple in the yard ,so cool. Lots of Fox down by Glenwood a few years back but I haven't seen them for awhile, Sandhills crane flying back thru South Elgin Don't you just love spring!!!