Submitted by -PineMarten t3_zy9id8 in vermont
What is your favorite Vermont critter and why? A special encounter? A sighting? I’ll go first! My favorite is the American Marten. (http://vtfishandwildlife.com/learn-more/vermont-critters/mammals/american-marten ) We have very few left here, but they are around. They are mustelids (related to mink, weasels, polecats and fishers), and I find them to be very cute!
Woodchuck invades vegetable garden, brings a friend over: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EkOmaLlXiVs
Never liked woodchucks. As a kid hunted them with my trusty 22. But damn.... this guy's cute.
We have multiple in my area, I love watching them run around! They had babies last year, that was a riot!
Awww. Yeah sometimes we catch them lounging out in the sun during the summer, and we would love to observe some Woodchuck babies. We haven't seen them since the fall, but will be very excited to see who comes out of their den in the spring. We don't care how destructive they can be, we can coexist.
Bobcats. Because Bobcats
Bobcats are great!
I like opossums even though they are native to Vt. They eat ticks. Go opposums.
They are great, however the tick thing has been debunked; they barely eat any ticks at all
Source?
As a former VTF&W employee, I am somewhat familiar with this topic.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1877959X21001333?via%3Dihub
Excerpt from the study:
“To investigate this apparent preference exhibited by opossums for ingesting ticks, we comprehensively analyzed stomach contents of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. Using a dissecting microscope, we searched the contents exhaustively for ticks and tick body parts, without sieving or pre-rinsing the stomach contents. We did not locate any ticks or tick parts in the stomach contents of Virginia opossums. We also performed a vigorous literature search for corroborating evidence of tick ingestion. Our search revealed 23 manuscripts that describe diet analyses of Virginia opossums, 19 of which were conducted on stomach or digestive tract contents and four of which were scat-based analyses. None of the studies identified ticks in their analyses of diet items. We conclude that ticks are not a preferred diet item for Virginia opossums.”
Big fan of the peregrine falcon and osprey because of their (so far) successful recovery stories here.
Saw a peregrine sitting in a tree while stopped in traffic over by costco in Colchester last week. Was surprised to see it there of all places.
They're all over the place now and it's great. We have one that rests on the power pole out my window at the office every day. It is responsible for a lot of "lost time".
Well spent lost time 😉
Yes! I adore them as well. Very cool birds to watch
Fisher cats are amazing. I saw one hiking up Killington almost a decade ago and I'll never forget watching it run through the trees.
Such a long stride as the one I saw bounded through the snow! Mt. Carmel in Chittenden
I love the grey treefrog, especially when they are young. They are a beautiful bright green!
I had a close encounter with a screech owl once - in broad daylight. I was bird hunting in the NEK and ducked under an apple tree's limbs. When I stood up inside I felt something looking at me. I turned around and there was this grey/white screech owl not 6 feet away, eye-level with me, just looking me over. We stood there for a minute or two, checking each other out. Then he turned around on the branch and flew off without a sound. I've been a fan since
That is a wonderful story! Owls are so inquisitive, always liked them too!
It’s a tie between the stoat (haven’t seen one yet but my neighbor has them on her property) and the snowshoe hare (seen one, just once, in winter).
Snowshoe hare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowshoe_hare
Got to observe a stoat up close from a basement window a few years ago in Pittsfield. So cool! Never saw one or heard of them before. Don’t expect to ever see one again…
You got lucky.
Once I was going for a walk along a road in Richmond and saw a stoat poke it’s little head up in the hollowed knot of a tree. It was such a perfectly posed scene, like a little animatronic. Could hardly believe my eyes!
Probably the Cottontails that live under my shed. My dogs scare off the loose cats but don't bother with the rabbits.
Beavers
Fishers because everyone I know calls them "murder weasels". Never heard of them until moved here. Have one that prowls the ravine behind our house. Love their ghostly yowls and they definitely do kill everything.
I saw my first one last spring. Glad they’re making a comeback.
I heard one yowling for the first time last spring. Had no idea what it was and I was alone in the middle of nowhere. Super cool looking back at it now. Thought I pissed off a wendigo or something at the time.
Swamp Donkey all the way! Love to see moose out and about in the wild. Have had a few encounters with them (more frequently when up in the NEK), and seeing their long faces always makes me smile.
Ermine because they slaughter mice
Aka Stoat… so cool!
The little red-eared sliders hold a soft spot in my heart for some reason.
But I'd love to see the sturgeon come back with force. Actual lake monsters up to 12ft long? Yes, please
I’ve witnessed quite a few sturgeon! Very cool. I once saw one jump clear out of the water right behind some guys fishing on a bass boat. It was choppy and they didn’t notice at all. It was like full-grown man sized.
Loons! They sound so pretty 🥺
I was waiting for someone to say loons! I love them dearly. Their calls are beautiful
Screw the Marten. They are Sadists. They should all be turned into gloves and purses.....they will find the smallest hole in your chicken coop and decapitate all of your chickens in a night. They don't eat the chickens....they just get off chewing their heads off.
I had one that came back every other night for a month just to kill one chicken at a time. I tried live traps...not so live traps and finally caught him in a snow storm where I could track him. Too bad by that time I was down to 3 chickens.
They are pretty and soft though. Smart animal....just sadistic. I wouldn't have minded if it utilized the bird. But they don't.
He's a goalie, he used to play a lot in the Burlington area, by far my favorite critter in VT.
Tim
Barn owls are majestic
Porcupine.
Prickle pigs!
Wild turkeys. I know, it seems ridiculous, but there's nothing quite like seeing a giant stupid looking used to be a dinosaur meandering around your back lawn. They make me laugh every time.
Also a big fan of the spiders we've got here. None are medically significant and some of them (jumping spiders in particular) are very cute.
How about woodchucks (the bipedal kind)? My favorite critters by far.
Jackalopes because they are at home on steep terrain
The High-Tipping Quebecois. Although extremely rare, they are incredibly desirable for the encouragement of natural growth in neighborhoods.
I adore my backyard fox. She's done a fantastic job at getting rid of mice and chipmunks. She doesn't seem to go after the squirrels as much, but that could be because my squirrels are the size of cats and have no fear. I also have a resident opossum in the trees. Not sure if it's a boy or girl, but that little one is often around cleaning up apples that fell from trees or tomatoes that had fallen from the ground.
Porcupines! They usually catch me going way too fast on winding dirt roads and force me to slow down and/or stop. They remind me to unclench and take it easy, and their little waddle is so stinking cute it just melts my troubles away to watch.
The red Fox. We had a litter living under an abandoned barn near our house and I loved watching them
My kids...for obvious reasons.
Valid 😂 I cannot argue
YOLOswagBRO69 t1_j24l4mu wrote
There's a Woodchuck that lives under an old shed out back, we love them