IRL Wildlife Encounters

Markiz

Markiz
Someone on Reddit inspired me to do this topic here, if nothing then to kill time until release tomorrow.

I hope this doesn't break any rules, but I've seen plenty IRL posts here on General so I think we're good.

So post here, what's the most exciting wildlife you encountered ? Scariest ?

Do you keep the list ? Or you have some photos to share ?

Are you planning any trips in wild in near time, do you have some special wishes for future etc...
 

peafowl

P
I live in Denmark where nothing is really scary.. But
I went out late in the evening, around 23.30, and heard a weird galloping thomp, i thought it was my cat but it was waay too heavy. then suddenly a few metres in front of me, theres a badger!! he stood still and looked at me for a moment, then continued on his way. such a cool animal :)
 

Markiz

Markiz
I actually didn't know they go that North. But they're indeed very cool. And they do get surprisingly heavy.

I've only saw live one once, while it waddled in front of my car one night.
 

Markiz

Markiz
Oh wow, that's cool. Hopefully if I see correctly that's a black bear.

But other than trash is it safe to be around in the woods during the day ?
 

peafowl

P
Markiz said:
I actually didn't know they go that North. But they're indeed very cool. And they do get surprisingly heavy.

I've only saw live one once, while it waddled in front of my car one night.
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Theyre very common here and our biggest carnivorous land mammal (excepting wolves which doesnt have an established population)
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
No pics, unfortunately, but I have quite a bit of stories, so I'll do 1 at a time.

A scary encounter, eh? Well, I live in Houston, but my family owns a plot of land on the woods in northeast Texas, near Longview; we're on the edge of the Piney Woods, so there are tons of animals.

So, one of my stories is that I was on the pier, fishing, feet dangling in the water and I'm with my younger brother. We're talking about what's gonna be for dinner with the rest of the fam. It's beautiful weather, quiet, when I see something on the surface of the water.

I look close, and.....

I jump out and say: "What is that? WHOA, THAT'S A CORAL SNAKE!!! A CORAL SNAKE IS IN THE WATER" (it was like 30 feet away going the opposite direction 😅).

First ever coral snake I've seen in the wild.

(By the way, I don't consider "seeing" an animal unless I've seen it on the wild. Do any of y'all do that?)
 

Aramar

Aramar
I'm a city boy so I haven't had many encounters with wildlife. The ones I've had would be pretty insignificant for most people, but for me they were cool experiences:

I saw a raccoon in Central Park in New York.

My grandfather had a house in the countryside and at night when we were in bed we could hear wildboars trying to get into our vegetable garden (never saw one though).

Now in Helsinki I usually see huge hares around the city parks (even in the city centre).

Probably my most exciting experience was a whale sightseeing tour in Canada. We saw many many whales, including calves. According to our guide, we even saw blue whales, but they were very far away and honestly I couldn't tell the differences between the different species we were seeing.
 

Cynogale bennettii II

Cynogale bennettii II
I keep a list of wild vertebrates I have ever seen (48 mammals, 266 birds, 16 reptiles and 8 amphibians) and also of all zoo/aquarium species I have ever photographed.

I have seen quite a few exciting things - there is nothing quite like seeing your first whale. Mine was a common minke, off the coast of Mull in Scotland. Another rather amazing marine sighting I had off the British coast was of an ocean sunfish in Pembrokeshire in Wales.

But I think for excitement, nothing quite matches seeing the enormous American crocodiles in the Rio Tarcoles in Costa Rica. We went out on a tour boat and watched several of the crocodiles being fed. One thing I clearly remember about the encounter was seeing the massive horseflies that were feeding on the crocodile's blood - I dread to think what a fly that could bite through the hide on a crocodile's back would do to my soft fleshy arms.

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In fact, I'd say many of my most memorable wildlife encounters came from Costa Rica - across the course of that trip I saw three species of monkey, two of sloth, various lizards such as iguanas and basilisks, strawberry poison frogs, a tarantula, agoutis, raccoons, masses of birds (including my only wild toucans, pelicans, roseate spoonbills and hummingbirds) and a clan of white-nosed coatis.

Not had very many 'scary' animal encounters, with my most nerve-wracking encounters being with either cows, dogs or horses. I once stumbled upon a sow badger and her cub on an evening walk and she made it very clear that she was fully prepared to escalate things if I didn't leave - fluffing her fur, stamping her feet and huffing like a steam train. Fortunately, I was able to backtrack until they both moved off.
 
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yoav_r

yoav_r
I once missed a whale shark on a dive by an hour. An hour after we left a whale shark randomly came to the reef, so all the divers in the water at the time got to swim with it.

I did have an encounter with a striped hyena once, which was cool as they are rare here. She's a local "celebtity" near the city where she lives, and she often eats out of trash so she comes close to houses at night.
 

nemolomen

nemolomen
Markiz said:
Oh wow, that's cool. Hopefully if I see correctly that's a black bear.

But other than trash is it safe to be around in the woods during the day ?
Click to expand...
Yes: Black Bears

They are wild animals and we keep our distance appropriately, but that said, we haven't, and our dogs haven't, encountered any during daylight hours. They always come at night.

I'll be putting up an electric fence around the trash to incentivize them to go elsewhere. Black Bears who become too accustomed to being near humans usually end up getting hit by cars because they lose their "fear"...

EDIT: We do regularly see them during the day though in certain areas, crossing certain roads and at a particular campground we frequent, all at a distance of course.
 
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snoogins

snoogins
Seeing an endangered timber rattlesnake while herping in the Jersey pine barrens was pretty cool. I don't know if it counts but I've seen many species of venomous snake, crocodilian and monitor lizard at reptile expos. Saw a baby coconut crab at one recently too. Also once I was arm's reach away from an 8 or 9 foot long sandbar shark while fishing for flounder at an inlet, it swam right next to my friend's boat and cruised along side it on the surface for a few minutes. It was a really cool once in a lifetime experience.
 

Cocolori

Cocolori
I ticked off a bucket list item a few years ago whale watching in Monterey Bay, I happened to be there for a couple of months doing a project on bluefin tuna and I went whale watching so much on the boats. It just happened to be a season with the highest number of blue whales they'd had in about 20 years so we saw them every day. Other end of the scale, me and my dad were in northern Portugal and set up a trail camera for the very first time and after one night we had video of wild boar, a polecat, a fox and, my favourite, a Common Genet which I didn't even know existed until then let alone walking 25m from the house.

Scariest was obviously the little African Penguin on Boulder's Beach, South Africa that tried to attack me and eat my shoe! I always knew penguins were evil (formal dress all the time, all the movies where they plot, parading round in edinburgh zoo like they own the place) but this confirmed it...
 

Markiz

Markiz
Slow Worm supremacy 😎

Well I started with intention to reply to everyone but it quickly got out of hand lol

But those are some cool encounters, and I'm especially jealous with the whale ones

And I guess I should reply to my own topic as well,

I've compiled short list of sorts, as I've kept one, mostly in my head, since I was a kid.

Chamois
-There's plenty of them in our mountains. They're almost a guaranteed sight when summiting above 2k meters. And they're not that afraid of people. Not super bold, but they would graze in herds not far away from resting spots.

On of my favorite encounters regarding them is seeing a herd drinking from glacial lake, early in the morning, as I exited my tent

European Beaver
-This is the most recent one. My brother and me were taking a night walk on the Danube coast and one got out on the shore in front of us. Really cool sight since they're pretty rare here.

Sadly it dipped when we tried to get closer to take a pic

European Wild Cat
-Saw it twice on local wooded hill.

They're bit chonkier than their domestic relatives, but super fast.

Barbary Ground Squirrel
-This one I'm not the 100% sure. We saw group of what looked like ground squirrels while we were summiting a Peak on Atlas in Morocco. They were kinda far away on steep slope, so I couldn't make out the details. I looked online and this seems pretty close

But definitely my most "exotic" encounter

Bottlenose Dolphins
-Saw a bunch of them in our little bay.

I've even had some groups come pretty close to my boat. They're always cheering sight.

Some kind of shark
-I've only saw a fin gliding infront of my boat. I've tried to get closer but my loud motor scared it off immediately

Moray Eel
-Saw it only once. It was swimming below me as I dived.

It disappeared in rocks when I resurfaced to take another breath.


And as of the scariest experience I heard a Brown Bear during one summit.

We were climbing some icy slope and I was super focused on rope and harnesses not paying much attention to anything else. Then out of nowhere this deep, deep growl (idk how you call the sound bears make) echoes close to us

I was ready to soil my pants right then and there, but one of the older mountaineers reassured us that it's the echo that makes is sound close and that it's probably way down in valley

On our way back we spotted some tracks in snow

Honorable mentions

Mammals:
-Roe Deer, Red Fox, Badger, Pine Marten, Nutria

Birds:
-Eagles, Owls, European Cranes, Hoopoes

Scops Owls are pretty fun sight

Reptiles:
-Eu Adder, Eu Horned Viper, Grass and Dice snakes, Ocellated and Legless Lizards

Amphibians:
-Fire Salamander and bunch of diff frogs

Sea Critters:
-Octopus, Flounder, Tunas, Weird Shrimp (Like mantis shrimp, but we don't have those)
 
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Markiz

Markiz
I really hope to book some kind of whale watching tour in recent future.

We were debating it once while we were in Italy but decided against it at the end
 

Angeł

Angeł
My personal favourite, possibly one of the most exciting experiences I’ve had to date, happened this springtime for me. I went up to stay with my partner in North Wales, and we decided to go out paddle boarding. Now, I’m absolutely awful at paddle boarding; I spend most of the time on my knees cutting through the waves rather than actually standing on top of my board. So we are pretty far out by this point, the sea below us is dark and the sky above is overcast. All of a sudden, I hear something come up for breath behind me. I turn around, and there staring right back at with me with the most intelligent, inquisitive look in its eyes is a Grey Seal. Pretty soon it’s evident that there are a few around us, as within a minute there are whiskered faces popping up from the waves all around us and staring at us with huge puppy eyes. My partner and I stayed completely still on pur boards, not wanting to frighten the seals (which can be quite skittish) or make them feel threatened. Since we were in their territory, we decided to let them check us out before we moved anywhere. For about half an hour they swam around and under us, popping up every now and then within arms reach of our boards as we tried to gently paddle away. It was one of those unexpected moments that really takes your breath away. For that exact reason, the Grey Seals in Planet Zoo will always have a special place in my heart. They are intelligent, inquisitive animals that (despite their massive size) just want to check you out rather than hurt or scare you. To this day, the most wonderful experience I’ve had with wild animals.
 
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