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Once upon a time I lived 7 years in the southern part of the United States.
It is hard to believe now but we lived in a house like this, an old cotton-plantation home in Georgia.

The house came with 2 (wild) dogs that were left behind by the former tenant. We had our own forest and a small stream ran through it.

I came straight from Amsterdam and had never in my life seen so much nature, let alone all the creatures that came with it. I shall only name a few of the animals that lived around our house. There was deer in our garden all the time and raccoons at night.

I have seen all sorts of snakes and yes, also rattle snakes. At night sometimes the dogs started to bark and there would be an Opossum.

Opossums have a very clever defend system. They pretend to be dead and spread a scent around of dead bodies. Many enemies are fooled and give up the chase.

But the most amazing animals to discover for me were the hummingbirds.

Some species of hummingbirds are as small as 5-cm. They move so fast that at first I thought they were large bees. Do you know this tiny bird has the unique ability to fly forward, backward, upside-down, and straight up like a helicopter
as no other bird can?

By now I live for many years in The Netherlands again but I still miss all that wild life.