While I was taxiing out at Wilson, a Secretary bird walked across in front of me! It was a large creature, as I had no problem seeing it over the nose of the Twin Otter.
Different airports and regions of the world have different norms for air traffic interaction. This will in part be the case as ATC becomes very familiar with some frequent user aircraft and operators. They'll get into a pattern, which may seem very casual to the outside observer, but has shown itself to work. Decades back I used to fly a Cessna 310 which was based at Toronto International (CYYZ, for those who live by codes). ATC knew that I was the only pilot who flew that plane, and I was very familiar with operations around that airport. I could ask for, and be granted clearances which were not normally available, and might seem a little casual, but it worked. When I worked at Bremerhaven, Germany (I don't remember the code), the Islanders would come and go commercially very casually, but their operations were extremely established, and it worked fine. When very established operators are receiving the "easy" clearances, it will in part be because they are excellent at accurate position reporting (local familiarity) and unusually good at watching out for traffic themselves. And example of this in many cities, will be traffic reporting aircraft, who know the area like the back of their hand, and can separate themselves well from other aircraft.
Always be alert, but as long as you know that the other aircraft are in communication, have faith in the system.