today i saw an eagle fly down and grab something like 30 ft away from me.
and then later, a little feather dropped out of the sky in front of me. not from the eagle ofc.
so what kind of cool things can you guys see in your day to day?
if i had a camera i'd take pictures of stuff. preying mantis, snakes, turtles, toads, deer, foxes, coyotes. but then if i had one, id see fuck all.

batou wrote:
People going digital with cameras,and see many 35's film users in thrift stores selling really cheap,but getting film developed is not as easy and still expensive,you may check out a computer secondhand store and get a good deal on a older digital camera for under 20 bucks or 12 pounds damn 20 us dollars is 12 pounds anyway maybe your option to start a cheap hobby

batou wrote:
Easy fix, just start banging on something, they'll all come out to see what you're doing (they be used to humans trying to be quiet and sneaky, you start making all sorts of noise they're gonna have to see just what you're up to).

I saw a bat one or two summers ago.
I was in my back garden at sunset, and a bat was flying around in circles catching insects. I kept sort of ducking a bit when it came near me It seemed like it was inches above my head, it probably was.

I'd never have been able to get it on camera though

I've seen some interesting little creatures outside our maisonette, including a beautiful Puss Moth (which I managed to photograph), and a couple of Lesser Stag Beetles (which I sadly didn't!). However, we mostly just get oodles & oodles of slugs!

Mandy

If you can get a picture of a owl in flight it's one of the most beautiful things there is.

I see deer, foxes and bats all the time where I'm at.

For some reason, bats fly into my houses too. Happened in this one two years ago... it came straight down the chimney. In my last house, three times we had to catch one that had flew inside - no easy task.

My granda also had to cut a bat free from my hair when I was a child - an experience I've never forgotten.

Someone (I think it was phem?) once said that maybe bats are my spirit animal due to the many encounters I have with them.

There are alot of hawks in flight and geese where I live. Sometimes I see a lone blue heron when I go walking by the river. There are like trillion deer and turtles where I am, too. Me loves them

And bats? Whew. Once some friends and I were walking downtown DC at night and we went up the steps of one of those huge federal buildings with the Roman architecture. There were hundreds of them hanging up high by the columns just chillin'.

My cousin and I just witnessed two small blue birds jumping a crow the other day. While observing we found out they were defending their nest. Everytime the crow attempted to fly away, the two of them attacked him and followed him. It was wild to watch.

Another day recently, my friends and I observed a wasp that kept flying around us fly straight into a spider's web. The spider was obviously very hungry and hastily crept out to poison the wasp, which he managed to paralyse it for a brief moment. The wasp was three times the spider's size. The wasp began fighting and struggling to get free and each time the spider would creep closer, the wasp threw its stinger up. It actually got free and flew off to the spider's disappointment. That wasp flew away like it got away from Freddy Krueger!

Speaking of creepy crawlies, I took this pic of one I have yet to identify. Anybody know what it is?

Another cool thread lifts its head! I was yestrday at out frontyard, practicing and enjoying windy, sunny day...
I had good time watching ants nearby doing their stuff. They got a beetle for food. I actually quit my rehearsal to watch them. They had killed the beetle already and they were pulling it towards their nest entrance.

the ants had to first cut the beetle in pieces and widen their nest entrance to get it fit in.. It was amazing to watch how precise and organized they were. They even brought out two soldier ants to move the beetle, it was almost too heavy for the workers to move in sandy terrain.

I could go ln forewer about ants, they are magnificient creatures.

Mountain wrote:
It looks like a devils coach horse beetle. I might be wrong, you can tell if you give it a prod it has a gland that comes out at the back and it arches its back pretending to be a scorpion.

Rick wrote:
Holy heck, Rick, that's one gorgeous owl! wow... I wish there would be orange/white owls in here too.

i can just about muster up a pic of next doors cat having a shit amongst my dandylions ,
but i appreciate a bit of wildlife .

I love this thread

I saw something weird once and no one ever believes me, at best they think I am mistaken......

I saw a huge black bird with a wingspan half the length of the roofs that it was circling over. It looked like it was the same size as this, but the shape was a little different with the wings being just as long but a third or fourth of the width.



I went on the internet to see if there were any other sightings. There had been a few but they were dismissed as sightings of California Condors which have wingspans up to 10 feet. Maybe a saw an extra big Callifornia Condor?

***
I was living in northern Arizona and there had been a drought. I came home from work and heard some distressed grunting coming from a stand of big cypress bushes in my front yard. Acting purely on intuition, I turned on the hose real low and walked gently to the cypress and laid the hose underneath and quickly went into the house and stayed there.

The next morning when I walked out, there was a javelina with 3 babies (one of them still had a bright red umbilical cord hanging from its tummy). They were against the front wall of my house right out in the open and I was a little scared because javelina have sharp tusks and can charge and bite humans when threatened. I got into my truck real quick and looked at them. The mother javelina was looking right at me and appeared very calm and very happy with her babies. It felt like she was saying "thank you" and that she wanted me to see her babies!

Wow! You have seen some cryptobird, cool.

Are those the piggies with spikes? Cute they are. Have any of you guys seen a bear? I have once... Pretty close too. It was just too dark to see it clearly. I was in a rowing boat and the bear was at lake shore, I went as close as I could very quietly. It noticed me when I was about 30 meters away and then it ran away. Wild bears are quite shy...

Hi Hexhammer. Their hair sometimes looks spikey, if that's what you mean? And they have tusk/long sharp teeth. Some of them have long visible tusks.

I've never seen a bear.

andyh wrote:
Hey Andy! thanks to you I did some googling and yes, it does resemble that type of beetle. This particular one I snapped in the pic had a dark blue iridescent colour and he walked very slow, as if he was plowing with his feet. I found out that it is definitely in the rove beetle family as the one you mentioned. The head on other looks bigger and wider than this type.

noseymutegirl wrote:
Ahh, ok. Cool things anyway!

Bears are cool, it's just better to stay far enough and not scare them, usually they are gone before ya even knoe there was one, they smell and hear so well and are quite aware of their surroundingd.. They're not very vicious evil man eating beasts some wanted to believe though. They're quite peaceful, but they're tough on protecting their cubs. Bear is the majestic king of the forest. I feel lucky I have seen one, in Finnish tradition bear is one of the forest gods, seeing any of these gods in the wild can be considered a great luck.

Mountain, that beetle you have in the picture, wow, it's cool, how big it is? In the picture it looks huge... But it's bit hard to say, there's not much to compare it to.

psketti wrote:

That's crazy! I can't believe you had to have a bat cut outta your hair! I love bats, though! Too cute!

I've recently had chimney swifts get into my house through the fireplace. Sometimes they are mistaken for bats when they fly around at twilight eating insects. I was going to have my dad put a screen over the opening because they are so noisey and wake me up early on Saturday mornings....but I've decided to just accept my loud housemates. They are too cute and according to what I've read, they are in need of places to call home.

I wish I had photographed them before I took them outta the house but I was too busy trying too free them to think about it.

Rick wrote:
David Hemmings is a great wildlife photographer and has some amazing shots of owls(hawks, hummingbirds, ect.). Some owls:
www.flickr.com/photos/davidhemmings/sets/72157622712926411/

I see hawks and owls all the time but I either don't have a camera on me or I don't think to try and get a shot. Most of the time you are going to need a zoom lens, anyway(I've been wanting to get one for this purpose).

Not too long ago when I was coming down my driveway, I saw this Barred Owl hanging out on a low branch. I stopped my Jeep right where it was. I just smiled looking up at him(or her ) and he just looks down at me curiously. I started to roll on to the house then I think- Damn! He was close enough to get a pic with my phone! So, I look back and he's still there, watching me...of course, as soon as I start to back up he took off! I can't say I blame him!

A week or two later, I cut down a road I normally don't drive because I forgot to stop by the store and there in the road lay a barred owl- hit by a car. I was so sad and wondered if it could be "my" owl(knowing damn well it could be any owl). Anyway, turned the Jeep around and rolled it up in a deflated float, took it home, and buried it in my driveway among the trees. Soon after, I'm talking with a girl at work who loves owls and had just commented on my owl shirt. I told her of my barred owl experience and sighed about how I hoped it wasn't "my" owl. When I pulled up to my home that evening, I saw a bird of prey flying away from my house- I believe it was a barred owl but I guess it could have been a red tailed hawk as it was flying away from me and I didn't get a good look at it's head. Still, I took it as a sign that it was "my" owl saying, "Hey, I'm still here!"

Man, I love nature! Great thread!