Wildlife encounters, Camden, NY

I just read the: 

"Monday, October 3, 2011: Wildlife encounters" 

blog post and thought I would share our Spring/Summer "guests".

I believe we began with a frog that had somehow gone from life to death. I found it sprawled in Juneau's area near a tree.  I moved it to under the tree to rest in peace.  

I think the next encounter I came across was a good sized snapping turtle.  It was probably about a foot in length.  I have never seen one that large where I could have picked it up and moved it.  It did not seem to be upset that I was looking at it fairly close, I did not attempt to move this visitor.  

You will notice some common factors from here on out.  

Next was a dead mouse in Juneau's run, followed by a dead mole like creature.  Both of these I moved to under the tree for peace.  

Our visitors begin to get a little larger now.  I went out one morning to find a white and brown snake, you you guessed it, dead in Juneau's run.  I do not deal with snakes. It took quite a bit for me to, using the poop scoop, move this limp, milky white, and brown thing just out of Juneau's run. I took pictures and posted it on Facebook for identification assistance.  I also looked on-line and I was pretty sure (in my mind) that I had a small copperhead, yes they can be in our area.  Dan assures me it was a milk snake not poisonous.  When he got home I insisted it be moved away from where I would find it.  Dan took it to the woods.  A few weeks went by and we came home after dark and went to feed the dogs.  There was a good sized lump, in Juneau's run again, not moving.  Well with a flash light we discovered a full grown skunk, dead.  Juneau and Raven did not smell like they had been sprayed, and Yukon only had a slight scent to him.  Again Dan moved the lifeless body to the woods so our home would not stink.

Amazingly none of the encounters required medical help.

I can hardly wait for next spring to see what new visitors we will have.