I just felt that people here might appreciate hearing/sharing stories about wildlife sightings/encounters. : )

(All the photos I've posted here were taken by me or my husband.)

So, the other day we were out randomly driving through the countryside and saw this guy browsing in a leisurely manner by the side of the road:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v96/iron...k/sheepbutt.jpg

(Unfortunately the viewfinder on my husband's camera is broken so he couldn't get any good pictures.)

We have lots of wildlife encounters, since we kind of actively seek out wild places (I'm a birdwatcher, btw). We find stuff closer to home, though, too, like the time when we lived in Oklahoma when Devon (my husband) caught a Pymgy Rattlesnake (Please do not try this at home! Devon is trained in catching and handling snakes) and took pictures of it in our bathtub.

Also in Oklahoma, we had a lot of Armadillos - sadly, given their habit of jumping straight up in the air when frightened, many of them meet an unfortunate end in the roads. This Red-tailed hawk took full advantage of the fact! (WARNING: there is a dead animal in picture but it's not graphic.)
And in case that was kinda sad, here's a live armadillo to cheer you up!

And here's a tiny gecko we found in our hotel room on the day we left to move to Indiana!

In Indiana, (where I'm from, originally), we don't have as much exotic wildlife, but one time we found a HUGE crawdad. I mean, seriously, it was a big one!
We also saw some really gorgeous salamanders (I think they were blue-spotted, maybe, but I can't remember. It's hard to tell the species apart.)

We don't have as many snakes here in Wyoming, which is probably why our yard/parking lot is infested with adorable bunnies:
Bunny.
(In case anyone's wondering, I think we live right in the area where the regular cottontail starts to look a lot like the Nuttall's cottontail.)
One of the bunnies this year had only one ear.

About a block away there's a park with a pond where these Yellow-headed blackbirds nest, along with a lot of Red-winged blackbirds (not shown).

About 1/2 an hour to one hour away there are mountains, where we can see Golden-mantled ground squirrels, American red squirrels, Yellow-bellied marmots, and the occasional Snowshoe hare.

Out on the plains, we see LOTS and LOTS of Pronghorn Antelope, White-tailed prairie dogs, White-tailed jackrabbits (and more jackrabbits!), and once we even saw a Sage Grouse! We also have plenty of Golden eagles, but they're kind of tricky to photograph.

Sometimes the animals out here let you get right up next to them, like this Violet-green swallow. Ironically, that was the first violet-green swallow I had ever seen. XD

So yeah, That's just a sampling! XD I actually try to keep up a list of the birds and animals that I see in the wild.


Anybody else have any cool wildlife stories? What kind of animals/birds hang out where you live?

Wow those photographs are great.

-LOVELY- photographs, seriously top notch :)

I'll have to dig out my photos, I see a lot of wildlife about my home. I live in the leafy southern counties of England, and my garden backs onto beech woodland. Animals I usually see include:

-All manner of average garden birds, including blackbirds, magpies, chaffinch, great and blue :censored:, wrens, and huge fat woodpigeons.
-A variety of hunting birds. I live in the area where they re-introduced Red Kites, and there are literally hundreds around :) A pair nest up in the woods behind my garden every year. I've also seen kestrels and buzzards, as well as a sparrowhawk (that killed a pigeon and ate it right in my back garden!), and occasionally little owls.
-Several small mammals, such as voles, shrews, edible doormice (another animal introduced in my area), and the occasional hedgehog. Many of these also appear as presents from my cats ¬¬
-Some larger animals, including rabbits (also sometimes presents...sigh), Reeve's Muntjac (what is it with all these introducees?), fallow deer, foxes and badgers.

When I'm at university, I often see many of the same things, but also:
-corvids! Tons of them! For some reason this area is teeming with magpies, jays, rooks and whole gangs of jackdaws - my absolute favourites :)

I'll really have to try and get some photos!

Man, I wish we had edible dormice here! XD

I went on my first major birding expedition of the year this saturday and picked up 5 new species for my life list:

- Ring-billed Gull
- Northern Pintail
- Common Goldeneye
- Green-winged Teal
- Snow Goose

I enjoy watching waterfowl. They tend not to flit behind a branch before you can get your binoculars focused. XD

Edible dormice are cute...but the cats find them as edible as their name suggets. Our house when we moved in had them living in the walls...but when we turned up with 3 cats they soon left. They're a protected species around here but I can't seem to explain that concept to my cats... ¬¬

Waterfowl are pretty, but the only ones I seem to see on the Thames are endless swans and canada geese, if I'm lucky moorhens, coots and crested grebes!

Today my husband and I went for a walk in the local park. To our surprise as we rounded a bend in the path around the lake, an Osprey dove into the water right in front of us and caught a fish. That was awesome!
After that we drove out of town and saw some kestrels swooping for insects.
We also saw quite a few ducks and geese, and, back in town we saw a black-crowned night heron.

Here's a pair of Redheads my husband photographed today: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v96/iron...redheadpair.jpg

ooo I dunno how I missed this topic :P The pictures are really neat! :)

I don't have any pictures now, but I have a few that I can show later. I live right on the edge of the mountains so I've seen 3 bears, lots of foxes and deer and skunks and raccoons and such. Nothing super thrilling but it's nice :P

Nice pic everyone :D. My neighborhood is Deer Heaven I see them all the time. I'll try to get some pics.

Hey Penguinman, have you ever been to Rocky Mountain National Park? It's a really awesome place.

I've never seen a bear. I've only camped in bear country once (up near Yellowstone). I was rather anxious, but we didn't see any bears. Plenty of birds, though!

As for deer, we get both whitetails and mulies around here. And Elk. Don't forget the elk... A coworker of my husbands claims to have seen cougar twice while hiking/camping in the small mountainous area just 1/2 an hour west of here. 0_o Now I'm kind of scared, because we go out there all the time... sometimes at night!

Oh, and my husband sees foxes in town on his way home from work at least once a week, it seems. XD

Yeah! Rocky Mountain National Park is like a 45 min drive from where I am so I've been many times :) It's a really beautiful place! Lots of elk and such, although around here its mostly just white tailed deer.

Cougar? Wow! My mom thought there was a cougar in this area behind our backyard once and freaked out and called the police and such, but it was probably just a bobcat or else a large house cat hahaha. So yeah, I've never actually seen a cougar.

Yeah, every time I go to RMNP there are dozens of people stopped along the road taking pictures of elk! It was up there that we saw the Snowshoe Hare. It's too bad I'm probably going to be gone this summer, I really wanted to camp up there and see the Blue Grouse and whatnot... The alpine tundra areas are really fantastic, too. We drove up Trail Ridge rd. to, like 12,000 feet one time then got out and hiked to the top of the mountain. It wasn't really a hike, I guess, since we were on the little path they have set up there. It's neat!


Another interesting place in CO is Pawnee Buttes, which is a nesting habitat for prairie falcons and other birds of prey. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, though.

Strange I've never heard of Pawnee Buttes lol! I'll have to see how far it is.

We saw a really nice male cardinal yesterday haha, and then a whole bunch of bats were circling around us which was pretty cool (we were eating outside). Right now I'm in NC so it's really nice out :)

Awesome. I haven't seen a Cardinal since moving out west...


Went down to RMNP today, oddly enough! Didn't see any wildlife besides Ravens and Steller's Jays and a few mulies and elk, though, because it's still snowy up there. XD I keep hoping to see another Abert's Squirrel

Saw the following birds today at the water treatment plant/wetlands in Ft. Collins, CO:

Canada Goose
Mallard
Rock Pigeon
American Robin
European Starling
Blue Jay
Belted Kingfisher
White-breasted Nuthatch
Lesser Scaup
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
American Wigeon
Northern Shoveler
Ring-Billed Gull
Downy Woodpecker
Black-Capped Chickadee
Northern Flicker
White-crowned Sparrow
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Eurasian Collared Dove
Dark-eyed Junco
Great Blue Heron


Good day for birds!

New birds I saw this past couple of weeks:

10. Greater Yellowlegs (Cheyenne, WY)
11. Lesser Yellowlegs (Cheyenne, WY)
12. Sandhill Crane (Torrington, WY)
13. Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Cheyenne, WY)
14. Bohemian Waxwing (Cheyenne, WY)
15. Loggerhead Shrike (Cheyenne, WY)
16. Brewer's Sparrow (Carpenter, WY)
17. Chestnut-collared Longspur (Laramie, WY)
18. McCown's Longspur (Laramie, WY)
19. Ring-necked duck (Laramie, WY
20. Sage Thrasher (Laramie, WY)
21. Savannah Sparrow (Laramie, WY)
22. Vesper Sparrow (Laramie, WY)

It's spring! :D


Amusing story my husband just told me from work:

[/quote]
I feel bad, but I did the right thing. I found a robin sitting on an almost completed nest in an area that she wouldn’t have been safe. So she flew off and I destroyed the nest to keep her from building there and her little babies from not being safe.


Holy :censored:, I’ve never heard a robin make such a horrified sound when she flew back and found her nest gone! X D Seriously, I was across the field and heard her shriek.
[/quote]

I'm back in my student house for the exam period and early summer has hit us. Also the summer migrants have re-appeared, I've been watching a pair of swifts that have built a nest in the gutter of the opposite house, I see them diving and screaming at the magpies...they're a great distraction from revision, I can tell you XD

Bleck, the birds in my garden aren't close enough, apparently...
There is a pair of Blackbirds that nest in m garden every year, and the male likes to come into the kitchen and eat from the dogs food bowls... And the other day, the dog came in and scared him into the house.
My mum walked upstairs to me trying to catch a blackbird with a towel... Anyways, I got him and took him outside! XD

Animals I have seen:

Red kites - we went to Galloway to see red kites.
Black birds - there are 2 in our garden. One we call Stumpy because he always has a feather sticking up on his back. :aww:
Crows - another pair across the road.
Deer - they walk through a gap it the fence and eat random plants. :ohnoes:
Cats - mine

This is all I can be bothered telling you about. :ew:
I'll mabye post pics of the red kites later.