Wild kingdom at the Obergs, redux

The title refers to a much earlier post I wrote when we lived in Indiana. Now that we are back in Illinois and in our new house, I thought I’d write about wildlife sightings we’ve had over the course of the past few weeks.Last week Michele noticed a ground hog (or is it a woodchuck?) living underneath the neighbor’s deck. She and the children had fun watching it from a few feet away from our bedroom window. Then later that day, I saw a black squirrel coming down one of the big oak trees outside our living room window. When Keegan and I were unloading some of our furniture from a rented trailer, I happened to turn around at just the right moment to spot two immature raccoons peaking out at me from a few feet away, one on either side of the steps to our front deck. Maybe they live underneath the deck?! I sure hope not.Perhaps the most interesting wildlife experience so far occurred when I was waiting for a bus to catch in the downtown area of the small town where we live. Without warning, a hawk flew low over my head and landed in a pine tree about 20 feet away. I got a good look at it and I think it was a sharp-shinned hawk. Pretty cool! Even better, it then ambushed some sparrows right in front of me and barely missed catching one of them.I have noticed that the area where we live is distinctly different than anyplace else I’ve ever lived, mainly because there are very large trees that keep our house and property nicely shaded. The trees are a mixture of mature pines and oaks and I love the fact that they support a large variety of animals. Another difference here is that our soil is very sandy, which relates, I think, to the fact that we live on an isthmus between two large lakes and there are lakes everywhere around us.