What Animal have you seen in the wild, that was a rarity for you ?

I live in a big city, and this county hasn't much wildlife to see. It's probably on account of all those poisons.

It took me years to see one crumby, little crawdad. It was about an inch long.

One time I saw a dead mole or a shrew. It digs and lives in the ground. It was about 2 inches long. I felt and it had the best quality fur.

One time I saw a dead mouse. It's native to this area.

One time I saw a dead snake with colorful stripes like a coral snake. Marty said it was a rat snake.

Not that long ago I saw a large black black bird in the Ohio River.

Another time I saw a Canada goose. That's no big deal. But it visited some polluted water. I was surprised at that.

Two bald eagles on Kerr Lake in NC.

Bald eagles, in Houston.

I saw a couple of black bears for the first time a couple of months ago. That was awesome!

You folks might enjoy seeing this shot of young brown bear strolling near our campsite in Katmai last month!

I saw a Fin Whale last weekend while paddle boarding and last winter, I saw a pair of Humpback Whales (also while paddle boarding).

I took my wife and youngest son fishing a few weekends ago - it was quite early and as we walked along the river bank we heard a splashing just a few feet in front of us. We stopped while I tried to figure out what kind of fish was making all the noise when my wife pointed out it was in fact an otter. It sat up right in front of us and was feeding on freshwater mussels.
Beautiful sight and not a common one around here.

Cheers
Steve

I live in a medium sized city, few green spaces. Lucky to have kingfishers within 5 minutes walk from home. Not very exciting compared to some of the sightings here, but I have the county's first recorded Rhopalus subrufous

Bald Eagle, Bobcat and Fox, in the suburbs. Also, a coyote, running down our street, at night. Not many cats in our neighborhood. Our next door neighbor keeps bringing home kittens, and they keep disappearing. We keep telling her to keep them inside at night, but, she just won't listen. L

DaltonGang said:

Bald Eagle, Bobcat and Fox, in the suburbs. Also, a coyote, running down our street, at night. Not many cats in our neighborhood. Our next door neighbor keeps bringing home kittens, and they keep disappearing. We keep telling her to keep them inside at night, but, she just won't listen. L

Click to expand...

coyote feeding station!

Surprisingly I don't see many grasshoppers. This one landed on my car yesterday. Biggest one I've ever seen.

Holy Moly!!! Joker looks tasty! Like an all-day protein sucker!

jzuzphreek said:

2 awesome stories! What part of Mississippi? I live in the swamps west of New Orleans, and we have an Eagle that nests in the early Spring each year. Right on the side of Interstate!

Click to expand...

North east Mississippi is where I have settled down. I lived on the Gulf coast for several years ( my mother and I moved down there when I was 12, from here) and I spent a good bit of my late teens and early twenties up to no good in NOLA and even ended up (stuck) in LaPlace ( I think is how you spell it) once while attempting to hitchhike west....that was as far as I made it.

I've only once seen a Ringtail. (San Antonio, Texas)

Unusual circumstances too, it was in the parking lot where I work in the middle of the afternoon. They're nocturnal, solitary, and timid by nature. I think it came out from a vehicle I'd disturbed. Maybe it rode in with the car, or maybe it lived nearby and was just laying low until night time. It was pretty frightened by me and scampered under another car. Tried to encourage it towards and nearby property with some woodlands, but it disappeared on me.


(web search photo)

That's an interesting encounter EdG, I have never seen a ringtail although I don't think they live this far east.
Around here someone would feel sorry for the "starving raccoon" and try to feed it

....or some knucklehead would try and shoot it....

MrBryant said:

That's an interesting encounter EdG, I have never seen a ringtail although I don't think they live this far east.
Around here someone would feel sorry for the "starving raccoon" and try to feed it

....or some knucklehead would try and shoot it....

Click to expand...

I could see someone mistaking it for a emaciated raccoon. Swift little fella for sure.

Almost....

MrBryant said:

North east Mississippi is where I have settled down. I lived on the Gulf coast for several years ( my mother and I moved down there when I was 12, from here) and I spent a good bit of my late teens and early twenties up to no good in NOLA and even ended up (stuck) in LaPlace ( I think is how you spell it) once while attempting to hitchhike west....that was as far as I made it.

Click to expand...

What an awful place to end up.

Kidding. I live about 10 minutes east of LaPlace.

I live in somewhat rural western Washington. We have a ton of bald eagles, red tailed hawks, great horned owls and barred owls (when we first moved here we thought the coyotes that migrate through occasionally were sticking around, but it turned out to be the barred owl calls).

Last summer I was out in the back yard when something huge crashed down into one of our alders. I looked at it and shouted at my wife "I think a seal just landed in one of the alders". Turns out it was an Osprey (also known as a Seahawk - conveniently the same name as our football team). That thing was huge! It took off a while later and passed between me and the sun and left an enormous shadow which sent chills down my spine.

The other thing I saw earlier this spring was a coyote pup running around. Looked like a cute little puppy galloping along our driveway.

hanging out in Starved Rock State Park over the Winter months is awesome. Literally hundreds of bald eagles. Apparently the dam in the river provides an easy food source and they hang out being our national gluttons. Because the trees are bare at that time of year, you can easily spot 100 or so per tree along the banks of the river.

Saw a Wolverine on a service road ,was travelling to a remote valley ranch for work .

Glenn