Northwest Backyard Zoo

In case you haven’t noticed, there is a wonderful menagerie of colorful and exotic creatures in your own backyard. Most of these creature live lives unseen by us despite being under our very. Pacific Tree Frogs let us know they’re around with a spring time racket but how often do we see the multitude of salamanders creeping about? Spiders and their webs are things we we always seem to be running into and its hard to live here without stepping on a slug. You can’t miss the handiwork of our mole population but when is the last time you actually saw one of the little buggers? And the moles are easily outnumbered by their insectivore cousins, the shrews.  Millions of little black ground spiders prowl around the grass jungle of our lawns. Striped tiger worms and tank like isopod pill bugs hide under everything and share their secret world with thousands of other members of the invertebrate world.

Here’s a small sample:

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