Backyard Safari

You don’t need to travel to some faraway place to find wildlife to watch. (Although visiting a conservation area is never a bad idea!) Lots of wonderful, watchable critters can be found in your own backyard or a tree-filled park. You just need to know where, when, and what to watch for.

Wildlife Viewing Tips

• Be quiet. Animals will run and hide when they hear people. Being quiet also makes it easier for you to hear a bird’s call or a squirrel scurrying through dry leaves.
• Look for movement. Many animals blend in with their surroundings. Keep your eyes drifting around until you spot something moving. Then, zero in on the movement to find out what it is.
• Search for clues. Animals leave signs that let us know where they’ve been. Search for footprints in the mud, chew marks on an acorn, fur snagged on a branch, and even scat — aka poop — on the ground.
• Bring binoculars. Some critters, no matter how quiet and sneaky you might be, won’t let you get near them. A pair of binoculars will help you get a close look even when they keep their distance.

Eastern Cottontail

Where: Cottontails hang out along the edges of thickets and weedy areas. This way, they can escape into the brush if a predator comes calling.

When: The best time to spot a cottontail is at dawn and in the early evening when they search for tender plants to nibble.

What: One way to tell if a cottontail lives nearby is to look for its scat. Because they eat plants, cottontail poop looks like clusters of chocolate puffs.

Watch This!

You eat what?! If you see a cottontail snacking on raisins, it’s a good bet they aren’t raisins. Like most rabbits, cottontails eat their own droppings. Digesting “food” twice helps them absorb extra nutrients.

Freeze! To avoid being seen, cottontails often freeze in place and remain motionless for up to 15 minutes. If you watch one long enough, you might notice it shift sloooooowly from an outstretched pose to a more compact, hunched-up position.

Gray Squirrel

Where: Gray squirrels live anywhere there are oaks, hickories, and other nut-producing trees.

When: Squirrels are early risers, searching for food from sunrise to mid-morning and then again in the late afternoon. Watching squirrels is easiest in the fall when they’re busy gathering acorns for winter.

What: Leafy nests in the tops of trees indicate a squirrel lives in your neighborhood. You might also find piles of walnut and hickory shells left behind by these messy eaters.

Watch This!

Terrific tails: When scampering from branch to branch, a squirrel uses its long, bushy tail for balance. When it’s sunny, it curls its tail overhead for shade. When rain falls, it uses its tail for an umbrella. And if a squirrel slips off a branch, the tail becomes a parachute to slow its fall.

Hide and seek: If you approach a squirrel, it may climb to the opposite side of a tree so you can’t see it. If you circle around the tree, the squirrel will scamper around and around the trunk to stay hidden.

Blue Jay

Where: Look for these colorful songbirds wherever there are oak trees. Jays love to creep through thick branches along the edges of forests and woods.

When: Blue jays search for food throughout the day but are most active in mid-morning and late afternoon. In the fall, it’s easy to observe blue jays while they’re busy gathering acorns for winter.

What: To find a jay, listen for its shrieking Thief! Thief! Thief! call. Putting up a feeder filled with sunflower seeds or peanuts will lure these wary birds into viewing range.

Watch This!

You can guess a jay’s mood by looking at the crest of feathers on top of its head. A happy jay keeps its crest low. An angry or worried jay raises its crest high.

Jays have a flexible throat. (Biologists call it a “gular pouch.”) If you watch a jay at a feeder, you may see it quickly gobble down seeds. Once it flies to a safe perch, it will spit up the seeds and eat them one by one.

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

Where: Nectar from flowers provides energy to keep hummingbirds humming. If you put out a feeder filled with sugar water, it won’t take long for a hungry hummer to find it.

When: Ruby-throated hummingbirds arrive in Missouri in April and stay through September. In August, newly hatched hummers and migrators cause numbers to swell at feeders.

What: Missouri’s tiniest bird contains a huge dose of courage. Try holding your hand near a feeder. With a little luck and lots of patience, you might coax a hummer to perch on your finger.

Watch This!

On average, a hummingbird flaps its wings about 50 times a second. (That’s what makes the humming sound.) Flapping fast allows a hummer to hover in place like a tiny helicopter, which is important if you’re trying to stick your beak into a flower.

Adult males have a patch of feathers on their throats. When they’re in the shade, the feathers look black. But in bright sunlight, the feathers sparkle red like rubies. Females and youngsters don’t have red throats.

Three-Toed Box Turtle

Where: If your yard borders a shady patch of woods, chances are you have a box turtle or two nearby.

When: Box turtles are active during the day from April through October. During the winter, they dig shallow holes to hibernate in.

What: Like other reptiles, box turtles are cold-blooded. When it’s cool, look for them basking in the sun. When it’s hot, look for them resting in the shade.

Watch This!

If you approach a box turtle, it may pull in its head and legs and close up its shell. Box turtles are the only turtles in Missouri that can do this. They have a hinge on their lower shell that lets them fold it up like the flap of a box.

Follow a box turtle at a distance, and you may get to watch it eat lunch. Insects, earthworms, berries, and mushrooms are all on the menu.

American Toad

Where: Look for American toads in your vegetable and flower gardens, around the edges of landscaping stones, or along the shady foundations of houses and sheds.

When: During the day, toads hide under rocks and logs or burrow into loose dirt and leaves. They emerge at night to hunt for insects to eat.

What: Did that rock just blink? A toad’s bumpy brown skin makes it all but invisible against rocks, leaves, or soil. You’ll need sharp eyes and a little luck to spot one of these chubby amphibians.

Watch This!

To get a girlfriend, male toads sing on warm nights from mid-March through July. Their call is a high-pitched, musical trill that sounds like steam whistling out of a tea kettle: breeeeeeeee!

Toads hunt at night. If you find one gobbling bugs near a porch light, watch for a while. A toad has two methods for catching insects. Sometimes it uses its arms to push an insect into its cavernous mouth. Other times, it flicks out its long, sticky tongue to snatch up an unsuspecting bug.