That sound horrifically close to something I saw as a child, probably around 6 or 7 at the time?

I was living in a small town in northern California. My house was on the corner of the street, with a fence waist-high to adults around the front yard, and a standard wooden 6-ft fence in the backyard. We had a huge cactus growing against the side that connected to our next door neighbors - and right outside my bedroom window. I can't remember why, probably just having trouble sleeping as I always have, but I was up way later than I normally could stay up.

I, being the innocent, happy child I was, got up to go look outside at the cactus. I like, and have always liked, cacti. Anyway, I get up out of my bed, and walk over to the window. I pull over the curtain a little bit to peek out at the magnificent, taller-than-the-fence cactus. This was a mistake, and it led to nightmares for a long time.

Standing outside my window, about halfway to the furthest side of the fence was something almost exactly like what you described, and I definitely remember the yellow, tiny eyes. It was staring off into the distance but I'm pretty sure it noticed me because it turned its head my direction. After staring in what I can only describe as absolute terror for a few second, I shrunk away from the curtain and turned the lights on before running across the hall to my parents room. I told them that someone was in the backyard and my dad rushed out, but it wasn't there anymore when they got there.

I remember that when morning came, I tried to better explain what I saw to my mom, only for her to say I must have saw part of the cactus weirdly and thought it was something else. The problem with that, which still irks me, is that the cactus in our backyard had red flowerings on it. And they most certainly didn't give off a yellow brilliance.