Nature, Schmature

Scrub jays are darting around the yard and the house finches are singing. Above, a tree squirrel is hopping from branch to branch. It’s summertime and nature is everywhere.

Don’t you just hate it?

OK, maybe hate is too strong a word. Nature is fine in its place. Just not in ours. So in the spirit of knowing thine enemy, we’ll slip off our unused hiking boots and let our fingers do the walking on the wild side.

Let’s start at eNature (https://www.enature.com/main/home.asp) with its local wildlife descriptions. Using the National Audubon Society’s (https://www.audubon.org) field guides, eNature lets you plug in a ZIP code and get info on birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that might be invading your personal space. Maybe even slithering under your door. As you’re reading this.

Since there was an uninvited baby opossum--like, call first, dude--on the patio the other night, we thought we’d look it up. We have always heard they play dead when threatened, so we were ready with some harsh language. Luckily, we read the field guide first:

“More often it tries to bluff its attacker by hissing, screeching, salivating, opening its mouth wide to show all of its 50 teeth, and sometimes excreting a greenish substance.” Greenish substance? We could overlook the rat tail, but not if it’s going to go Linda Blair on us.

ENature also has an advanced bird finder that lets you plug in certain characteristics and it will then produce photos of the likely suspects. It probably works OK on real birds but was a bit unsatisfying when we’d tried to create a species. Hey, a cross between a hummingbird and crow could happen.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also has fact sheets on various wildlife at https://species.fws.gov. There are lists of threatened and endangered species, and, on the other end of the spectrum, invasive species that we all just wish would go away.

Wildlife Tracker (https://wildlifetracker.com) is an animal and environmental search engine. Check out the Web cam list. Wildlife Web (https://www.selu.com/bio/wildlife) also has links and photos, as well as sounds. Another source for links is Bill’s Wildlife Sites (https://www.wildlifer.com/wildlifesites/index.html).

National Geographic (https://www.nationalgeographic.org) has many interactive wildlife features, including a Congo Trek and an otter cam.

But back to the backyard. If all is not harmonious in your little patch of nature--and, really, how could it be?--try Living With Wildlife at

https://www.livingwith wildlife.com.

Andrea Kitay writes for this paper and her columns are indexed here by subject.

And, if the problem isn’t you, but an injured animal, you can find Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers at https://www.southeasternoutdoors.com/rehab_usa.html.

Tree huggers can check out these organizations:

* World Wildlife Fund (https://www.worldwildlife.org)

* The Nature Conservancy (https://www.tnc.org)

* Defenders of Wildlife (https://www.defenders.org)

* National Wildlife Federation (https://www.nwf.org)

* The Sierra Club (https://www.sierraclub.org)

The sites generally offer information, some stuff for kids, and many, many solicitations for membership and donations.

If you insist on actually getting out there, the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter (for Los Angeles and Orange counties) lists guided hikes at https://angeleschapter.org.

For kids, there’s the Children’s Nature Institute (https://www.childrensnatureinstitute.org), which conducts family walks in many areas of the Southland.

And if you tote along the hardware to set up a Web cam, we might just join you.

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