Corralitas Drive: Practicing For Halloween

Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, October 24, 2016.   Just a reminder, slow down while driving our hillside streets.  There are children, animals and people who may not be able to move quickly in the roadway.  Keep your kids and animals inside and, or on a leash this weekend.  Expect lots of revelry for the holidays.

Please show some respect for your neighbors if you are hosting a party.  Turn the noise down after 10PM, not everyone shares your taste in music.  The hills are notorious for the "canyon effect" of sound bouncing around and being louder across a canyon than right next door.  

Photo: Diane Edwardson, October 11, 2016.  Parking is limited to one side of the street on most of our area streets.  Encourage your guests to use a ride sharing or taxi service and ensure they park legally (not on the Red Car Property, red curb, wrong side of the street nor blocking your neighbors' driveways).

Photo: Diane Edwardson, October 7, 2016.  Not a pretty opossum: mangy, lumpy and limpy.  

Don't encourage unwanted guests at your party.  If your party is outdoors, be sure to clean up all food trash the same night, or the rats, skunks, opossum, raccoons and coyotes will make a bigger mess of your yard than you left it the night before.  And they will keep returning, looking for more.

Have a safe and sane Halloween and Dia de los Muertos.

Corralitas Drive: Where Wildlife Comes To Your Door In Broad Daylight

Photo: Corralitas Neighbor, May 7, 2016.  A neighbor was shocked that her cat just watched from the doorstep as the little white opossum strolled by late this morning.  The cat usually screams bloody murder from behind closed doors when opossum walk by the windows after dark. He has a special and unexplained hatred of opossum, but not today.

This is not the first photo the neighbor has sent of the opossum strolling through the yard in the daytime.  It's the best one.  I'm starting to think the white opossum walk around more in the daytime than night.  I've often seen dark opossum on the street and yard at night.  The little white opossum, often comes by with a much larger white opossum friend.   Of course, the neighbor's other cat, a semi-feral, neutered male cat who is not allowed in the house, tends to hang out with a raccoon, a skunk and probably opossum too.

Do not feed your pets outside.  If you must, pick up the bowls as soon as they finish.  Do not attempt to feed or pet wildlife.  No matter how accustomed wild animals are to humans, they are not pets.  Broken and open trashcans attract wildlife.   Replace your trashcans for free on the City's website (now you have to register an account to use the online request services) or call 311.

Click here for all our opossum posts.

If you live near the Red Car Property, send us your wildlife encounters (backyard, street or on the Red Car Property): redcarproperty@gmail.com.  Please send photos as .jpg attachments, preferably along with a wide shot of the same location.  Include your name, location of, and brief account of the encounter.  

Red Car Canyon: 2013 Hangover, Critter Cam! Stuff You Missed Last Year

Photos: © Miguel Ordeñana, some rights reserved,  Los Angeles County Natural Museum camera trap, May 2013.  Coyote.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

For a week last May, Wildlife on the Red Car Property was documented with a remote critter camera on the LA Nature Map.  Ordeñana is a field biologist & lead gallery interpreter at the LA County Natural History Museum.
 
Jonathan Vandiveer, Red Car Property neighbor & blog contributor, commented (when I sent him the link last summer), "The timestamp on the coyote photo indicates I'd just jogged through the canyon.  I never saw him.  The close angle and expression on his face is one you'd only get with a remote camera."    

Striped Skunk

Raccoon

Virginia Opossum

Eastern Fox Squirrel

Domestic Cat.  From the size of his neck, I'd say it's an intact male.

Stuff you missed last year: we shoot & collect tons of photos.  So we try to wrap up the year with some interesting ones we never got a chance to run.

Corralitas Drive: Baby Opossum Trying To Look Bigger

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 23, 2013, 11:04 PM.  My dog startled a 5" long baby opossum in the backyard.  Check out the prehensile tail and gigantic ears.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)  

Luckily, my dog was on-leash because of the many nocturnal creatures that come through the yard.  He hates opossums as much as our cat hates opossums. (The cat once raced out the door & took down a full grown opossum for no discernible reason.)

The baby hissed, barred its teeth, did a handstand trying to look larger, bracing its hind legs on the steep slope behind it.  By the time I came back out without my dog, with a real camera, the opossum was long gone. 

Compare this little guy with the huge opossum we saw last week.

Corralitas Drive: Daytime Opossum Alert

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013, 10:11 AM.  They say when you see nocturnal animals in the daylight, they're often injured or sick.  This big headed opossum seemed thin, but alert. Its nose was really bright pink, much pinker than it read on camera.  Judging by it's huge head, long canines & thick neck, I'm guessing it's a male.  (Click on photos to enlarge.) 

My dog & I startled the opossum while walking along the short end of Corralitas.  It was walking right along the fence line adjacent to the 2 Freeway. It must have smelled something across Corralitas it wanted, because despite darting back up to the safety of the underbrush on the 2 Freeway parkway, through the hole in the fence, it was in no hurry to hide from me.  I stood there for 10 minutes shooting photos from the street, waiting to see if it was injured.  It won and I got bored and went home after shooting dozens of photos that showed no evidence of injury.

Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 13, 2013.  The hole in the fence the opossum ran through was large enough for a bear to pass through.  To no avail, Corralitas neighbors have asked CalTrans for years to fix this and other parts of the fence on short end of Corralitas.  (Dashed lines added for illustration.)

If you feed your pets outside, pick up the food bowls after they eat.  Do not leave trash outside uncovered.  If your trashcan is broken or cracked call the City's 311 service and get it replaced, or use the City's website to get it replaced - for free - http://www.lacity.org/. Or get the City's new smartphone app.

Learn more about living with opossums and other urban wildlife on the City's Animal Services website.

Corralitas Drive: Rubber Tree Fruit

Photo: Diane Edwardson, July 4, 2012.  Fruit from Rubber Trees (Ficus elastica) turns brown on the outside when ripe.  It smells a bit like Kiwi fruit.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Apparently, fruit of the Rubber Trees in my yard is like crack to animals.  After watching skunks, opossum, raccoons, rats, parrots, birds, squirrels and dogs obsessively eating the tiny fruit, I had to look investigate further.  (I had been calling them beans, because that's what they looked like.)  

Photo: Diane Edwardson, July , 2012.  The Rubber Trees in my yard bear fruit year-round. However right now, it must be extra tasty due to the warm weather because the dogs have never been so interested in it.

It is a non-native species that grows 98 - 130' tall.  It is a drought tolerant species, but it will knock a house off its foundation to get to water; its roots will break into water and sewer lines.  They are very hard to completely remove once established.  In this neighborhood, they must have been a landscape trend because so many neighbors have these large mature trees near planted too close to their houses (built in 1910 - 1960). 

Disclaimer: The Corralitas Red Car Property Blog prefers to quote reliable sources, such as CalFlora and California Poison Control, on the issue of toxicity. We often get email suggesting some plants are edible. If you are eating your way through the Red Car Property, we DO NOT recommend you eat any plant you find in the Red Car Property neighborhood without first doing your own research.



Corralitas Drive: Juvenile Opossum Mocking My Dog

Photo: Diane Edwardson, September 29, 2011, 11:41 PM.  No, that's no a big rat, but a small opossum, about 8-10" long (not counting the tail), with very dark fur. (Click on photo to enlarge.) 

Opossums are just another species who call the urban forest home.  This one was meandering along a fence when my on-leash dog caught scent of it.  A first, I thought it was a huge rat, but then it froze, giving me that opossum ferocious hiss, with its mouth wide open, showing off an impressive set of canine teeth for such a small animal. 

If you walk early mornings on the Red Car Property between Rose Scharlin and Adelbert, you can see their footprints on the path.  The footprints are larger than a squirrel's but a lot smaller than a raccoon's.  

Opossums can transmit certain diseases and parasites to your pets, so be sure to keep your pets' vaccinations up to date and do not let your dogs play with opossums or other wildlife.

Learn more about living with opossums and other urban wildlife on the City's Animal Service's website.

Click here for more neighborhood animal tracks.