I see osprey around here all the time. At first it was unusual, but now I’ve gotten use to them. They like to perch atop the light poles on the Howard Frankland bridge. We’ve also watched them mating atop a light pole near my daughter’s soccer field; at the Dunedin field a couple of weeks the ones in the nest atop their lightpole made a heckofa ruckus. I may have seen the Crested Caracara at some point and just assumed it was an osprey. I’ll have to watch more carefully.
Where’s the park you referred to? I’m not familiar with it. I blade the Upper Hillsborough Trail all of the time. I wouldn’t mind a new path.
We also saw a fox in our driveway once. That was really odd since there was no real “wilderness” nearby – this was in Ohio.
Flatwoods is maybe a ten minute drive east of Temple Terrace: one part of a large interlaced region of recreational areas, nature trails and bike paths which is collectively known by the romantic title of “Lower Hillsborough Flood Detention Area and Wilderness Park.” Take I-75 to the Fletcher Ave. exit (266, I think) and head east; Fletcher turns into Morris Bridge Road when it passes under I-75. You’ll immediately pass by Trout Creek Park on your left. Keep going for about three miles, and eventually you’ll pass Morris Bridge Park and cross over the Hillsborough River. A couple more miles, and Flatwoods will be on your left. (There’s another way to get to Flatwoods directly from Bruce B. Downs, but I don’t use that entrance.) Morris Bridge Park and Trout Creek are nice parks; the former is where I usually burn my calories when I feel so inclined these days. However, it’s more suited for biking and canoeing than blading.
I came across an echidna while hiking the Dove Lake trail at Cradle Mountain–cute little guy!
The Flying Fox colonies at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens–I went running through the park early one morning, and wondered what kind of animal was making an ungodly amount of noise…and there they were, hundreds (thousands?) of those things!
Wedge-Tailed Eagle–I was driving along and flushed one that was feeding along the side of the road. It took wing, and flew right over the car… it was so HUGE that I almost drove off the road.
I always knew what porcupines looked like but the first one I ever encountered in the wild freaked me out because it was so much larger than I expected.
Same with beavers.
Same with kingfishers, I thought they were blue jay sized but they’re much bigger.
I saw a weird animal in the Sandia Mountains in 1985. It initially appeared to be a cat but it had short legs and a long body like a weasel, plus a fluffy tail like a fox. It was a ringtail cat, also known as cacomistle, and is a cousin of the racoon (in spite of its common name it isn’t related to cats.) They are actually fairly common but rarely seen because they tend to come out only in the late evening.
KRC: You may find the words of my grandfather helpful. He was an itinerant cacomistler, wise in the old lore of the wily and elusive cacomistle, and well-known for his uncanny tracking skills and cacomistle-like agility. Folks used to call him Ol’ Mistle-Toes. Said he:
When you’re stalking the wild cacomistle
(which has teeth just as sharp as a thistle),
you can lure it with a tasty bit of gristle,
or call it with a cacomistle whistle.
I was surprised to see gray seals frolicking in the water at a beach on Cape Cod just a few yards away from human swimmers. Not that the seals are dangerous to people, they are just so big up close…males apparently grow over 800 pounds and ten feet long.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade but some of these animals are not really unusual in North America. Foxes, coyotes and red tailed hawks are quite comfortable in urban environments.
I was out hiking a few months ago in a small mountain valley, a few hundred feet uphill of a small stream. I was happily plodding down the trail when I heard a big rustling and splashing. I looked down at the stream, and there was a big-ass MOOSE lumbering up the mountain in the stream. It was staring straight at me, and I stared right back as we walked past each other in opposite directions.
I’ve seen about a zillion moose, but this was the best one.
Back in the early 80’s I decided to go backpacking in the Tetons. It was early spring, April/Mayish. The area where I had gone wasn’t really open yet so I had it to myself. I’m walking up a trail that ran between Teewinot and St. John. I hear a noise behind me and lo and behold a yearling moose is about 50 feet away. I look at it a while thinking that no one knows where I am. The moose stops and starts munching on some brush. I walk on a bit, the moose follows, I stop, moose stops. This gets repeated every little bit until I get to where I’m going and pitch my tent. The moose just sort of hangs out, generally staying within 50-75 feet. The next morning I get up and he’s still there. I take a hike and it follows a bit then disappears. When I get back to the tent, there it is. It stays all night again and follows me most of the way back to my truck.
I guess it’s mother ran it off when she was getting ready to have a new calf and it was just lonely.
Probally seeing several species of Auklets flock together. Up close the Crested is an abosutly amazing looking bird, flying in a flock with several othe Auklets is a truely special sight. I wish I was a good enough writer to describe the way they fly. together. I new it was gonna be good as I was preped for it but accually seeing it was a suprise still.
There are several Islands in the Aelutions that have such a large biomass of birds that no picture could ever do it justice. I saw the largest known colony of northern fulmars in America–topping one-half million–on Chagulak Island. The site is astounding. When you first see it you are taken back then you have to re-focus your eyes to fee further back into the horizon to notice that the birds go as far as you can see both up and out.
On a south facing cliff on St George Island I saw even a greater birding site. This was great because these where mostly cliff dwelling birds and I couldent even begin to tell you how many there where. The biologists couldent really even guess. There has never been even a closely accurate count. I remember being out on a skiff doing a brife RR trip out to view them with just a couple people. It was quiet and we just sat and watched. Every direction was full of birds. I wont list them here but after staring at the cliffs that streched for miles and looking up and all around we noticed that even under us was birds. Hundereds swimming under the boat as well. the Muirs where checking us out. To see hundreds of birds swimming right under your boat is a suprime suprise.
The first time I saw the Eagles on the Homer Spit.
Everytime I see baby moose in my backyard.
A snowy owl on the beach.
I saw a Glaucous winged Gull pearched in a living pine tree one time. I think that is quite rare.
Saudi has its fair share of weirdness. I saw the “flower-pot snake,” an accidentally introduced species that people will tell you is a worm but is actually a tiny snake. It is about the diameter of a kitchen match and coal-black. Maybe 10 - 15 cm long.
The other weird animal I’ve seen is “Triops.” Triops is some kind of living dinosaur and lives in temporary mud-holes in the desert. They will eat anything smaller than themselves. Unfortunately, triops is only a couple of CM long or maybe a tiny bit more. Very cool little animals that you can keep in an aquarium and feed yeast.
A group of Peahens, and at least one Peacock. Not too unusual, right?
Except when I find them milling around in the middle of the road, a little ways up the hill from where I live. In California. I had to creep by 'em—they had no intention of hurrying up or getting out of the way for my sake.
(In all fairness, I know where they must have come from…the refuse disposal area, at the top of the hill, where quite a few Peacocks live.)
Speaking of birds, there was one I saw, once, at a local SeaWorld-type park…the closest thing to it’s behavior and appearance that I can find is a Secretary Bird, but I swear the one I saw was all black. One of the strangest looking creatures I’ve ever seen in my life.
I saw an animal in Thailand that wasn’t unusual for the country, but the circumstances were. I was staying at my wife’s parent’s house in Phitsanulouk for a vacation. The neighborhood kids would come over every night and sit in a semicircle around the TV and watch cartoons. All the kids were maybe 5 or 6 years old.
Anyway, I came home one night with a few too many beers for my own good and walked by the little semicircle of kids without paying attention. Three steps later I realized that one of the kids had looked really weird.
I turned around and looked a bit closer and one of the boys had brought his “playmate” over to watch TV. His playmate was a kind of ape with very white fur that lives in Thailand. I think it is called a “shinee” in Thai.
Oddly, the ape just sat there and acted like any of the other kids and watched the cartoons. It didn’t act weird or destructive or do anything that would make it unwelcome. Evidently, it had its own little house next door to the boy’s and was his usual playmate. The other kids accepted the beast as nothing unusual.
I was really surprised when a Tarantula showed up in the parking lot. I was living in Salt Lake City at the time, and had no idea they came so far north.
I wasn’t really surprised when we encountered one hiking in Zion National Park in southern Utah. (What did surprise me was that my girlfriend – notriously squeamish about such trhings – wasn’t freaked. “Look how graceful it is!” she exclaimed. She didn’t even freeak out at night when she saw that the tent had great big gaping holes larger than a tarantula around the door.)
Yeah, PapSett got it right. I should have included a link myself. These are endangered species in the UK where there is only a single known pond where they live. They are quite common here during the years when we have rain. Triops is active as hell, too. They are constantly swooping around in the tank and trying to catch something to eat.
