Of course, where you live will determine what creatures are your neighbors. In the city, you can expect fox squirrels and songbirds, including chickadees, house Finches house sparrows, mourning doves, flickers, blue jays, grackles, and downy woodpeckers. You may see waxwings and warblers, and the occasional hummingbird, if you offer tubular flowers or a nectar feeder to attract them. If you live near a park or open space, you may see bats, owls, Canada geese, red foxes, raccoons, and deer. If you're close to a waterway, beavers, great blue herons, black-crowned night-herons, kingfishers, and a variety of ducks, coots and other waterfowl are a high possibility. If your home is in the foothills and mountains, you may rind elk in your yard in the morning, and be kept company by gray and Steller's jays, nutcrackers, hummingbirds and ravens. Sapsuckers may rap out a tattoo in the pine trees, while Abert's squirrels and chickarees scold passersby.

Stands of deciduous trees—along water, in parks and urban landscaping—often attract migratory birds in spring and fall; some will stay to nest and rear their young, treating you to a peek at bird "home life". A tremendous variety of books and resources offer help discovering the wildlife around your home. Here's a sampling: Colorado's Backyard Wildlife, Watchable Birds of the Rocky Mountains, Birdscaping Your Garden, and A Field Guide to Mammal Tracking.

Next: DOW Working for Wildlife: Watchable Wildlife Program

(The information contained in this issue of Colorado's Wildlife Company was accurate at the time of original publication. Situations and circumstances described, staff positions, contact information, and dates of some events may have changed in the interim. Present knowledge and understanding of biological and behavioral facts and information may also be different, now, than presented here.)