Out of Place Critters

[paleoman]

#4850

Have you ever been out in your stomping grounds and seen a critter that made your head turn? For instance a few ridges back in Vermonts’ Green Mts. I ran into a Peacock. And again, way back on another ridge one fall wandered a Holstein. Just not ordinary sights in those parts and amusing to recall.

[Doc Nock]

#34449

in wandered a Holstein

LOL…Got milk!?

Only thing like that for me was once leaning on a tree, catching my breath, I saw this “speck” coming at me and growing bigger (relative term)

It was a Saw-whey (sp?) owl. Never knew there was such a tiny owl…

It was really a super cool experience…

[Stumpkiller]

#34457

I met this guy on my 20 acres.

Turns out a few years before a local game farm had imported several Fallow Deer with out the proper permits and had a fence malfunction before the DEC showed up to haul off the illegal aliens.

Knew it wasn’t a whitetail – and we have enough problem with invasive species. It was impounded and checked for rabies and tuberculosis (who knew?) and I got the meat and rack, but not the rest of the head. Several still unaccounted for.

[Charles Ek]

#34467

“It depends on what your definition of ‘stomping grounds’ is.” 😉

While driving once on the Parks Highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, some movement in the brush alongside the road caught my eye. Nah, it couldn’t be. Circled back and sure enough, it was a musk ox bull, about five hundred miles east of the nearest free-ranging herd.

My excitement was tempered, however, by the knowledge that a non-free-ranging herd was located about sixty miles east of my location. Never heard whether he was compelled to return home. I know for a fact certain that he died lonely, if he wasn’t.

[paleoman]

#35015

Stumpkiller wrote: I met this guy on my 20 acres.

Turns out a few years before a local game farm had imported several Fallow Deer with out the proper permits and had a fence malfunction before the DEC showed up to haul off the illegal aliens.

Knew it wasn’t a whitetail – and we have enough problem with invasive species. It was impounded and checked for rabies and tuberculosis (who knew?) and I got the meat and rack, but not the rest of the head. Several still unaccounted for.

That’s a Roe deer right?

[paleoman]

#35020

oops…I see you said it was a Fallow deer.

[archer38]

#35286

Over the last few years, there seems to be a growing number of cougar sightings in our area. I personally have never seen one or even it’s track but I know a few who have actual photos of one. Not exactly a native species to Ontario Canada as far as I know !!

[David Petersen]

#35405

Aside from my Bigbutt sighting … one July several years ago my wife, a friend (old hunting buddy Erica) and I were having dinner when I noticed movement outside in the thick-leafed aspen sapling grove. It was a young bull moose. He walked right up to the wall of windows and stared in at us, then walked off into the woods and was gone. Thing is, moose are not native to CO. But we have great habitat and reintroductions have done well. The closest release site was on the far side of the Continental Divide, more than 100 very steep and rugged miles away. Nothing travels like a young male moose. I snapped lots of pics through the windows, but this was pre-digital days (at least for me) and turns out the camera had no film.

Oh, and it’s a saw-whet owl, named for the “chalk on a blackboard” chirp a file makes being drawn across a saw blade in sharpening. You’re lucky to have seen one. We have lots of them here and rarely seen but often enjoyed at night.

[Ralph]

#35497

Mom, Dad and I were sitting outside enjoying the evening at their place a couple miles west of Mesa, Co when the dogs started raising Cain.

Their place was about a 1/4 mile down a lane from the road. We looked up there was a big bull buffalo coming straight at us. Their lane was vehicle wide with barbed wire fence on both sides. Narrow space, dogs wanting some buffalo butt and a buff wanting no part of those dogs, things were getting a little harry. But believe it or not, the little part bat, part rat 😀 dog of theirs got right in that ol’buffs face. Mr. Buff couldn’t figure that little bundle of noise and huff and puff so he turned around and lit out.

There was a guy a few miles away that was raising a few head of buffalo and this one had gotten, “free”, loose.

If that buffalo would have kept coming and if he’d been pissed at the dogs, we could have had a real situation.

[Jason Wesbrock]

#36433

A few years ago my daughter and I were in our turkey blind on a cattle ranch just outside Mineral Point, Wisconsin. This is maybe 20 or 30 miles north of the WI/IL border. Right at first light a pair of small black bears ran past our blind. Bears weren’t supposed to be anywhere remotely close to that area.

[TurkeyCommander]

#36477

Archer38 wrote: Over the last few years, there seems to be a growing number of cougar sightings in our area. I personally have never seen one or even it’s track but I know a few who have actual photos of one. Not exactly a native species to Ontario Canada as far as I know !!

Im in Southern Ontario myself. Grand river terriortory. There has been a lot of sightings in my area too in the last couple years. Just as elusive as bigfoot around here though.

[hay57]

#36556

Back in ’75 it was a very rare thing to see Canada Geese here in southern Ohio . I was driving , about 5 miles from home when I spotted a flock of 85 geese in V formation and very low . Now at that time I was 18 years old and had only seen one flock and it was so high it was barely visible , though Dad and I could hear them very well . So , upon sighting the low flyers I began taking different roads to stay in sight and follow them . Much to my amazement they ended up landing in the field right behind our home . Nowadays they are a very common sight and very few migrate .

[Mark Turton]

#37778

Stumpkiller, grandma or grandpa was probably fallow, definitely not roe. Fallow and sika through some odd looking fawns.

I see snow geese very occasionally, may be once every five years.

Mark.

[James Harvey]

#38029

So these two stories aren’t unexpected animals, but animals behaving unexpectedly…

A snake killing and eating a croc in central Queensland:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/03/03/3955563.htm

A western grey kangaroo eating a penguin in Western Australia:

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2014/02/video-kangaroo-eats-a-penguin

Nature is full of weirdo’s 😉

Jim

[William Warren]

#38259

We have surprised the most variety of critters while floating down the river. Otters, a variety of ducks, deer bedded down on the bank, laid out flat on the ground “hiding” in plain sight, lots of raccoons. My favorite was a screech owl, also seldom seen but heard quite often. There was a gum tree growing out over the river that had broken off in the past and a sprout had grown off the end and the old break had become hollow. The sleepy eyed owl was perched in the hollow in the early morning light after a night of owl carousing. I drifted by slowly watching him until he spotted me and rolled quickly back into the hollow.

[James Harvey]

#38543

Here’s a photo of the first wild deer I’d ever seen in Australia:

Chital deer are quite common up here in north Queensland, but I didn’t know that when I moved up here so seeing these guys gave me quite a shock. Given these were also the first deer my son ever saw he thought they were called the first thing he heard me say when we saw them. That’s why when I flick through my TBM’s now he is constantly saying ‘Oh sh!t’ 😉

[critch]

#38939

I haven’t seen a cougar or a black bear here in the Southern Ozarks in years, however, they seem to be everywhere now..also, a young grey wolf was killed in the county north of us when the hunter mistook it for a coyote. The tests on the animal indicated it came down from Minnesota, that’s a long way to travel buddy.

WE are blessed in this area with all sorts of critters, so I try to keep my eye out for new things.

I will tell you that the first time I saw an armadillo up here, mid-80s, it made me jump. I had seen them often in Texas; they seem to like sleeping in the middle of the road..much like our possums.

[paleoman]

#39369

Reading through these had me recalling how stunned I was as a young guy to see a flying squirrel land on a tree in front of my flashlight beam one fall. Despite all my time in the woods I never knew they were common to the area.

[grumpy]

#39459

Backpacking on the long trail (vt), in the 90s. I didn’t backpack much in the 80/90s – kids. Saw what I thought were cow tracks, and wondered “What are cows doing up here?” Till I almost ran into the first moose I ever saw in the wild. They are bigger than cows.

[grumpy]

#39474

’95 I was coming back from a business trip, and drove past the old homestead. About a mile from the house I grew up in there were couple brown things walking across a hay field. Stopped the truck looked thru the bincs at the first wild turkeys I had ever seen. When I was a teen shooting woodchucks in that field they were extinct.

[William Warren]

#39512

paleoman wrote: Reading through these had me recalling how stunned I was as a young guy to see a flying squirrel land on a tree in front of my flashlight beam one fall. Despite all my time in the woods I never knew they were common to the area.

Flying Squirrels are so cool. I feed the birds in a “squirrel proof” feeder. Keeps the greys away but the flying squirrel is lighter than a cardinal and can sit on the perch. I had the feeder on a big poplar and at night the flying squirrels would glide in from the woods behind us, hit that poplar and run down to the feeder, when done they just climbed the poplar and glided back to the woods. It was loads of fun sitting out on the porch on summer nights watching them sail across the yard and scrap over the bird food. Got some pics somewhere. will post if I can find them.

[David Fudala]

#41720

Back when I was a teen-ager and first starting in bowhunting, my cousin and I got turned around after dark walking out of some woods in central Illinois. We hopped a wire fence and wandered out into a field. When we looked up a slight rise in the field we could see the silohette of an enormous bull staring at us. You’ve never seen two kids fly back over a fence with such agility! I guess in that instance, we were the out of place critters!?!?

[Ralph]

#41791

Once upon time, I was the out of place critter and I’m glad I’m still here to tell of it. Many moons ago, an old friend, Gary, and I were bow hunting west of Gunnison Co., on the north side of the Blue Mesa Reservoir. I don’t remember which creek we were on but we beat ourselves up in his old Datsun 4X4 pickup getting in there.

Anyway it was late evening, dusk closing in fast and I was oozing my way back to camp when I spied Gary doing the same. “Aha” goes my immature little brain, “watch this” and I hunker down behind a tree. Then along comes Gary. I let out a big old roar and Gary turns around pulling to full draw and I’m whizzing in my britches. I’m glad he was young and quick on the “undraw” too or it could’ve been ugly.

A deal like that would’ve scared the fire out of anyone but little did I know he had just made a detour around a momma bear and a couple of cubs.

We never did laugh about that episode, it was a serious lesson in life for me.

[Etter1]

#41857

paleoman wrote: Reading through these had me recalling how stunned I was as a young guy to see a flying squirrel land on a tree in front of my flashlight beam one fall. Despite all my time in the woods I never knew they were common to the area.

I felt the same way when one came up a tree that I was sitting in, in the dark one morning.

Currently there are two in my attic that are about to be evicted the hard way. Cute little suckers.

[Author]

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