Here's a few more pics gathered while walking the dog. These first two pics are of what I believe to be an eastern black neck garter snake. This snake is very large for this species although it's hard to judge it's overall length. I'd guess around 30 inches. For those of you interested in observing snakes in the wild, rock cracks and crevices are great places to find them. It allows them to regulate temperature by moving deeper or shallower in the crevice depending on their needs. Ok, these next pics are obviously tarantulas and I stumbled upon them by accident. These were not as big as they look in the pictures and would have easily fit in the palm of hand. They were probably about 4 inches in diameter. This next pic is the same tarantula as above. I was trying to coax it out of it's hole a little more using a grass stem so I could get a better picture for y'all. The spider exploded out of that hole to attack the stem and I recoiled pretty girlishly and pulled the stem and spider back a couple feet from her burrow. As you can see, she still has the stem locked up. Scared the piss out of me. This is a different tarantula that was out in full view just a few feet from the first one. I'm pretty happy about how these shots came out cause it was pitch black outside, my flashlight is very weak, and I was having a hard time finding the spiders in the camera view finder.
I always find it amazing that you can see stuff like that just from walking the dog! Our wildlife feels so benign compared your yours.
We're expanding our wildlife repertoire here in suburban New Jersey. We've had tons of deer and the occasional bear ever since developers started building on the nearby Ramapo mountains and chasing them out. But lately the neighbors have also been seeing coyotes and red foxes in the neighborhood. One of my neighbors said if her dog has to go out in the middle of the night, she's just gonna let him crap in the garage.
I like how the thread title indicates that the "wildlife" is snakes and spiders. I guess you have to make that distinction when you live in Austin.
I'm sure there are people in this neighborhood that have never seen these animals. You have to look at least a little bit and you have to have an idea of what you're looking for. If I was just out casually walking the dog and not paying attention, I would miss just about everything. England does seem a bit short on wildlife though. I did have one cool encounter with a fox in England where it came out of the bushes right in front of me and just trotted a few feet ahead of me completely unaware that I was walking right behind it. The look on it's face when I said "Hey fox!" was priceless.
