Wild Flamingo in Hayward, California

[Alex Handy]

A zoo escapee my wife and I saw a couple weekends ago. Evidently, he left Marine World and has lived alone in Hayward for many years now. He should live to be something like 50 years old. He's a Chilean Flamingo, and this is a brackish salt pond, his natural habitat, albeit 4000 miles north.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/3082915132_3cbbbb6d21.jpg?v=0

Anyone out there got a non-native species taking up residence in their area? Parrokeets in Rehobeth Delaware? Parrots in San Francisco? Always seems to be birds. Except for the occasional Python in someone's apartment.

[Dirt]

There was an alligator that lived in a pond in the park in L.A. After months and months of trying, they finally caught it and it lives in the L.A. zoo now.

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070525_ap_captured_alligator.html

[playingwithknives]

I've been bitten by an invasive species, the False Widow Spider (http://www.uksafari.com/falsewidows.htm) in my bed in Essex.

At first it really hurt on my back where the bites were. Feeling the poison course through my body was really weird, with my arms burning hot and going numb and other parts of me tingling. It then ended up in the glands under my arms (lymph node?), which proceeded to burn hot and hurt like the devil for half hour or so. It nearly reached the point where I was going to phone the docs/ambulance but eventually the immediate pain stopped so I went back to bed. The next day I felt crap but not bad enough to bother going to the doctors. The bite marks took about a week to clear up and were only red bumps and dry skin, nothing gross.

I did roll over on the poor thing though, it was smeared across the bed sheet. I still have it's thorax and legs in a baggie somewhere, and I logged the incident with the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately, no super powers ever developed :(

On the less poisonous side of things there are some small Wallaby (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-necked_Wallaby) colonies in the UK, and flocks of Parrots (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3869815.stm) living quite happily in London.

[Coca Cola Zero]

There's a giant flock of wild parrots that hang out near a dog park that my girlfriend takes her dog to in Redondo Beach, CA.

[Coca Cola Zero]

At first it really hurt on my back where the bites were. Feeling the poison course through my body was really weird, with my arms burning hot and going numb and other parts of me tingling. It then ended up in the glands under my arms (lymph node?), which proceeded to burn hot and hurt like the devil for half hour or so. It nearly reached the point where I was going to phone the docs/ambulance but eventually the immediate pain stopped so I went back to bed.


I'm a hardcore suck-up-the-pain and avoid-the-doctors guy, but shit, if I got bit by a spider and I could feel the poison moving through my body, I'd be at the hospital post haste.

[Lorini]

There was an alligator that lived in a pond in the park in L.A. After months and months of trying, they finally caught it and it lives in the L.A. zoo now.

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070525_ap_captured_alligator.html

That's Reggie! He even has his own clothing line:)

There are a ton of Amazon parrots in Southern California. Lots of wild peacocks in Arcadia too.

[hong]

There's all these rats, cats and rabbits here in the wilds of suburban Austria.