Friday Fun: Strange and unusual encounters with regional wildlife
I am sure you already can imagine why I chose that topic...
During my Sunday morning long run two weeks ago I met Master Beaver, again. 😊
It felt a little bit like saying "Beetlejuice“ three times.... I talked about my last meeting with "Justin“ twice during this week, and 10min before the meeting on the phone I said to a friend: "I wonder if Justin Beaver is still living there?!“
Two years ago we saw him (or her?!) and named him Justin... obvious for Germans why: it‘s like the singer with a typo: Justin Bi(e)ber 😀 (beaver = Biber)
It‘s been pretty amazing to see this furry fella that close in daylight and outside his wet homebase. I tried to draw a sketch about that encounter and added some pictures too. 😊
Now I am curious, which regional wildlife animal have you seen, that is not usual to meet? We are happy to see some pictures too!
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Last year, we had all sorts of game cams up to capture images of the many critters that roam our property in the wilds of rural Washington.
There are plenty of deer, of course. We have an overgrown orchard that they seem to have roamed for many moons. This doe and her bebes have been spotted all over the place.
And your standard issue roaming groups of sneaky raccoons who are generally up to no good.
Kicking it up a notch, we finally caught an image of one of the coyotes who howl on the ridge in the wee hours. We hear them constantly but have only seen them on the cams, never in real life.
Then we discovered our resident bobcat! Now we're getting into the realm of critters we only want to see on the cams and not in real life. These guys aren't huge but will attack if provoked.
And at last, the critter that prompted my husband to carry a 9mm on all our forest walks, a full grown mountain lion. Again, never seen her in real life but she is definitely out there and it's always in the back of my mind during fall walks!
We treat all the wildlife on our land as if it were theirs, and we are their tenants. So we try to live in a state of mutual respect, except for my dog Charlie who will bark his head off at the deer and scare them.
Nice pictures, @nina_schmidt - beautiful landscape and an impressive animal!
This time I cannot come up with a sketch - but I am happy to share two pictures (taken in summer) with you all.
This handsome wild sow was spotted next to a swimming lake.
Not sure, but it might be the same one that gained some attention in the newspaper for stealing a bag full of food (and a laptop) from a man that only wanted to swim a bit in the lake. Yes, well - he probably would have never guessed that this might happen.
Actually not "wild"life but visiting the parking lot of a well-known fast food restaurant this raccoon was spotted sitting next to the trash bin and enjoying some food.
I would have rather expected them to come in the night, out from the woods nearby - but they don't seem to care a lot about humans taking photos of them while eating.
Texas has lots of wildlife. I find that I have better luck getting pictures of insects than I do of other larger animals.
Opossum:
little spider, I think he might be in the orbweaver family, but not sure.
Found what I think was a red-tailed hawk on my walk. He didn't like me taking a picture, so he took off. Got a good one of wings open there as he left.
Compared to the European ones they are 😊🐿
🦔🦔🦔
A little bit to late (as always) but I can give you some short stories from southern bavarian wildlife 😉
Living between some mountains, rivers and woods we had our experiences with cows when we went hiking -> but no wildlife. During summer snakes (only the harmless ones) drive my wife crazy.... but they are everywhere!
But the best place for regional wildlife is - believe it or not - our balcony 😎 This summer a pair of really, really small lizards lived there (so small I couldn't even take a pic) They enjoyed the sun and joined us when we went out for a drink in the evening.
And of course the visits from birds - we have magpies,blackbirds and crows living here! Here is a pic of my very "special" magpie friend who loves to join me with my morning coffee (and yeah I confess also my morning cig) sits down, places it's sh*t, looks at me very provocatively, does some noise and flies away 🤷♀️
Pretty sure this one wants to send me a message 🤣
I can add another unusual encounter by myself:
In the middle of my running course was an eel. After some inquiries in my circle of acquaintances I learned that eels partly migrate over land to the next body of water. It was probably too ambitious and too slow.😢
This is a cool Friday Fun idea! @nina_schmidt And I love your comic strip showing your 2nd encounter with Justin :)
I was walking along a trail on a recent trip to Forillon National Park in Quebec, Canada, and thought I saw a beaver on the trail from maybe 50 yards away. The tail looked broad, and I didn't even know what else it could be, however, it went into the forest before I could get a closer look. On the way back, this enormous porcupine was sitting in the middle of the trail. (photo is zoomed in, we kept our distance) First time I've seen one in real life and they actually have a pretty large tail, contrary to my expectations!
Also a running encounter during the Community wellness challenge earlier this year. Maybe not the wildest bunch ever, but they were many!
By the time I got through them, I had knitted myself a warm winter sweater ;-)
I meant to chime in earlier then stuff happened. First, @nina_schmidt I love this topic! As well as all the awesome things people have posted!
This was a couple of years ago, but Norma and I ran into this guy while walking the dogs in the woods. For reference he was about the size of a dinner plate:
As an avid runner of the ravines in Toronto, we often see raccoons, skunks, foxes. But this guy was on the running path one morning. He was limping and almost seemed to be looking for help. But not a wise idea to approach them.
We were surrounded by sheeps during our US road trip in 2017. This photo was taken near Bicknell, Utah. This is probably very common situation for local people, but we were really surprised.
This is from last year when a Moose was in our back yard.
Well that's my topic done already!!!
Our place borders on national park and so we see lots of things coming and going - Boofhead the wombat lived nearby for a while, the mob of roos that live at the neighbours house, the redneck wallabies, eastern water skinks live under the fridge and oven, red belly black snakes live near the dam and dance across the top of the water as they dive to catch dinner, uncountable birds. All the Australian clichés live nearby or pass through. We are very lucky to live where we do. But my all time fave was the echidna passing through one day.
Yeah, we love them too, hours of entertainment. They are all just beautiful. Just doing their thing, not too fussed about much. :)
Unfortunately we don't have emus or platypus'. But, hey, you cant have everything.... we do have an antechinus in the roof though - keeps the bugs down. :D
This is not one of mine.