Neighborhood Animals

Though Standley Lake is often recognized for its recreational opportunities, the park is also a wildlife refuge. Around the nature center, you can find many signs of nearby critters just out of sight; you only have to look closely.

Eastern cottontail rabbits like to burrow, but it’s not always a huge hole in the ground. You can find areas where these rabbits have dug shallow pits to cool down in the hot summer sun. Look for tufts of their soft fur stuck in low-hanging branches or along the trail and imprints of their long back paws in the loose sand.

On a warm spring evening, walk north of the Nature Center, and you may hear the sound of Western Chorus Frogs all chirping loudly in search of a mate. They can often be found in a shallow marsh past the boat storage lot surrounded by insect-loving birds like Spotted Towhees and Say’s Phoebes.

Look for evidence of Fox Squirrel activity under the oak trees just east of the Nature Center. It may be your first response to look up in the trees for a squirrel, but they leave clues of their favorite hangouts behind when they munch on a staple snack: acorns! Look in the tall grass or under fallen leaves for the shells of acorns from past seasons.

The trees around the nature center are home to many songbirds, woodpeckers, sparrows, and numerous migratory visitors. Depending on the season, it may be difficult to spot them but search for cavities in the trees where chickadees gather to stay warm in the winter and owls hide alone in the summer. If you are patient and quiet, bird activity increases the longer you wait.

On the Greenway Trail to your left, you’ll likely find evidence of the elusive coyote any time of year. Like domesticated dogs, they enjoy marking their territory often leaving scat in the middle of the trails. After a particularly rainy or snowy week, you can find their paw impressions in the exact location every day. Use this trick to discern them from a dog print: The space between the toe-pads tends to form an “X” in a coyote print due to the ovate shape of their foot. A dog print is more circular, and that “X” is stretched into an “H.”