DD and I saw a lynx on our way home yesterday! Anyone else have an interesting wildlife sighting recently?

[Dicentra]

We were driving home from town yesterday afternoon around 4:30 when an animal crossed the road about a kilometer in front of the vehicle.  It didn't really move like a deer so I thought maybe it was a large dog.  Didn't really move like a dog, though, either.  As we got to the point where it had crossed, I slowed down and stopped.  There, about 20 meters into the bush, was a lynx - just sitting and staring at the vehicle.  I've seen quite a lot of wildlife living in this relatively rural and isolated part of Canada, but I'd never seen a real, live lynx before. :)  Dd and I debated whether it was a lynx or a bobcat but based on the ear tufts, the tail, and the size of it, we're pretty sure it was a lynx.  It stared at us for a few seconds and then turned and walked away further into the bush.  I love living here. :)

 

Anyone else had any interesting sightings or encounters with critters recently?

[Miss Peregrine]

Just last week, DS and I saw a bobcat. We got several pictures but he turned his head everytime I snapped it. It was so beautiful.

This was the second time in 14 years I have seen one here.

[Erica in OR]

Someone from our church saw a mountain lion on the interstate. Actually on the interstate. It crossed into the fast lane to drink from a puddle.  :eek:

 

Erica in OR

[LynnG in Arizona]

Last year we moved to a house in Phoenix located near a desert mountain preserve.  We have seen several varieties of wildlife as a result.

 

Twice, we've found a 5 foot long snakeskin in our back yard; we're almost sure it's a king snake.  (Scary looking but basically harmless to humans.  And they eat rattlesnakes!)

 

We now hear coyotes howling at night and at odd times throughout the day.  On three different occasions, a coyote has walked down our street, bold as anything.

 

And we've had a great horned owl move into one of our palm trees.  He spends the days dozing up there, and giving us annoyed looks when we observe him from below.  We thought this was super cool until we realized just how much mess an owl can make on our front sidewalk!   He sometimes drops an owl pellet complete with fur and bones that are easily visible.  We're definitely experiencing the circle of life around here!

[J-rap]

We were picnicking the other day and saw some movement in the grass nearby.  It ended up being several armadillos making their way through the grass!  Fascinating creatures.  We were able to get very close to them and examine them. 

[Luckymama]

I saw a very exotic robin yesterday.

 

Harbinger of spring :D

[MomtoCandJ]

You mean besides the squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, birds and deer that frequent my yard??? These are on an at least weekly basis :) though I could go with out the deer since they like to run across the driveway when I'm trying to get in or out and they cause a lot of accidents in front of our house

[melbotoast]

We saw a hawk on our back fence. We live in the suburbs, so not the usual backyard bird.

[momofkhm]

I saw 7 (!) deer cross the path in front of me on my run last week.  That may not sound like much but I live in the middle of town.  The park I was running in doesn't seem big enough to support the 4 I saw several years ago but now 7?  There are houses completely around this park,  middle of town.

 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Not exotic but kind of funny - three very fat Canada geese who held up  traffic on a 4 lane highway as they ambled slowly across.  I don't know why they didn't just fly.  

[Tammi K]

We were at the ice rink, on campus of UAA and heading out the door of the building only to turn around as we saw a moose standing on the doorway.

[Joker]

We have gators and black bears. Recently people freaked out a bit because there were two cubs and a momma bear around but they eventually went farther from the homes.

[El...]

We have a squirrel living in our yard who has only a 1/2" stump of a tail.  We call him "Stumpy".  (We're creative like that.)

[Cottonwood]

We live in Montana so we see interesting stuff quite a bit, I think. The other day I drove to a farm about 45 minutes away and we spotted several bald eagles and drove past a buffalo farm.  I hunt w/ Dh so we also recently saw an elk herd of about 50 or so, and antelope are common just outside of town and beyond.  I'm from Florida so I consider all of this 'exotic'. I'm trying to avoid the most 'exotic' of all in these parts...the grizzly bear!  LOL  We have lynx in the area as well, but I have never seen one.  How cool!

[Annie G]

Saturday I saw a bald eagle perched in a tree beside the road. I see them flying occasionally but somehow a still one looks more cool. 

[Ausmumof3]

Wow cool... A lynx.

[stephanier.1765]

We saw a hawk on our back fence. We live in the suburbs, so not the usual backyard bird.

 

Once I was sitting in my hammock watching the birds at the feeder when I saw a hawk land on our chimney with eyes firmly fixed on those birds. Awesome moment. I did finally get up and spook it away so I wouldn't have to watch the death of any poor little birds.

[creekland]

We've seen many interesting, unusual (for us) critters recently including a large lobster, an octopus, and a Spotted Eagle Ray.  Then there have been oodles of all sorts of colorful and/or camouflaged fish.  It helps that we're currently on Grand Bahama and have been snorkeling.  ;)

 

Pics are here:

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/user/creekland/library/General/2015%20Bahamas?sort=2&multi=1&addtype=&page=1 

 

At our house, hawks, owls, deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, Bald Eagles, Osprey, and Blue Herons are all regulars - seen weekly or more often.  No lobsters or Spotted Eagle Rays though.

 

And once, just once, middle son saw a bobcat.  He (son) was young and it scared him tremendously.  He came in the house and said a lion was out to get him!

 

Then there was the time they (boys) heard cows lowing in the distance and swore they were hearing dinosaurs.  It was in their really young youth when they were watching Little Foot videos and the like.  We had to REALLY convince them that dinosaurs had truly died out years ago.  That was an interesting parenting experience.   :lol:

[Dmmetler]

We've had a raccoon on our back porch recently-we were trying to catch a stray mama cat and her out of season kitten, and DH had a motion sensitive camera set up to try to figure out t he best way to do so (BTW-mama and baby are now inside, were named "Mamba" and "Anery" from my snake-loving DD, and seem to be enjoying their new life as house pets. They'll go in to be fixed once they complete their 2nd cycle of shots and have time to recover). The kitty cam also caught a rather large slug. I'm kind of amazed it was that sensitive.

[Barb_]

We've visited and lived in many different areas of the US. While visiting family in Key Largo, we were swimming in the bay outside their mobile home when I felt something large and rubbery bump up against my legs. The water is brackish, so sharks while uncommon aren't unheard of. I almost passed out, lol. Once I hauled myself up on the dock I realized it was a manatee. It was a baby and wanted to play! He levered himself half out of the water using his flippers and the dock ladder looking for playmates. The kids all jumped in and he slid back down and nudged them with his nose, circled around,swam under their legs and way out into the bay. I think he was trying to get them to follow. When they stayed put, he returned and played with them some more. The next day he brought a slightly larger one with him and we decided on the basis of nothing that she was his sister.

 

We've since learned that touching endangered species is illegal. Oops. I'm kind of glad we didn't know it then because it was truly a once in a lifetime experience.

 

We live near the wash by the mountains in the desert and we have a resident roadrunner who pops up now and then depending on the season. They do in fact, run down the road. Quail families are always fun to watch and we had such a warm, wet winter last year (2013-14) that we ended up with a bumper crop of quail. One pair had 13 babies! They make the cutest little noises in the yard, similar tochickens. There was this one family who had a nervous daddy. Usually the mother and father just hunt for bugs and seeds alongside the babies, but this Daddy Quail would perch on my son's bike handlebars and watch over his brood while the mother and babies ate. Once they began to walk away, he would jump down and peck a bit as he followed. It was so sweet.

 

One of my girls almost stepped on a coiled up rattlesnake on our back porch. He was right up against the house trying to get cool in the draft by the back door. We called the fire department and they sent six strapping young twenty somethings to grab this snake with little grabbers and stuff it in a bag. It was hilarious! They would get the front and back stuffed in and the middle would slither out. They would screech and jump like children every time it escaped. The four girls old enough to be enamored of handsome firefighters were lined up in the windowsill watching the show. The oldest one said was totally worth almost stepping on a snake.

 

 

[Dicentra]

I saw a very exotic robin yesterday.

 

Harbinger of spring :D

 

I would have been more shocked to see a robin! :D  Spring will show up here around late April/early May, if we're lucky.

 

I miss green, growing things...

[Cinder]

We went for a walk at the state park today, First we saw a gaggle of geese flying overhead and squawking about where to land. Half went this way, half went that way, then they came back together and landed somewhere nearby. Later we saw a heron walking on the lake shore. Dd was walking on the opposite shore and when she got near enough the heron flew away. Then we saw two red tailed hawks perched in a tree. They were chased off by several crows.

[catz]

A lynx sighting is amazing!  :thumbup1:

 

We have had a number of bald eagle sightings lately and we live in a major metro, near a major river.

 

Saw a black bear right off the freeway not terribly long ago and closer to the city than I would have expected!

 

We went to Arizona in December and we saw something called a coatamundi that looked like a lemur/racoon like thing I'd never even heard of before.

[Barb_]

Not exotic but kind of funny - three very fat Canada geese who held up traffic on a 4 lane highway as they ambled slowly across. I don't know why they didn't just fly.

Like "Make Way for Ducklings"

[kubiac]

I <3 this thread.

 

A juvenile Cooper's hawk got caught in some bird netting over our vegetable garden. It freed itself but we had a chance to watch it and take a photograph before it flew away. It left behind its dead prey (a warbler) so we got to examine that as well. :)

 

We live in the middle of the city so everything past pigeons and squirrels is crazy-exciting wildlife to us.

[elegantlion]

I saw a bald eagle sitting in a field a few weeks ago. They're not too uncommon around here, but I hadn't see one in a long time. 

 

Tonight on the way home, a hawk flew right in front of the car in front of us. I think it was trying to fetch dinner off the side of the road. Thankfully the hawk moved quickly. 

 

[MomtoCandJ]

Well we just chased a coon and opussum out of our trash can (today was trash day so there wasn't even anything in it)

[MrsBasil]

We saw some bighorn sheep on a recent drive. Not uncommon, but still exciting for my kids. The highlight of the year appears to have been an albino grasshopper and a bunch of wooly bear caterpillars. :)

[wendy not in HI]

I recently saw a red fox.  We don't live in Hawaii any more, we are in Northern Virginia, in a suburb on DC.  I was driving through my neighborhood at about 9am, and Mr. Fox ran across the street, right in front of me.  He was a beautiful red with a luxuriously fluffy tail!  It was such a surprise!

 

 

[blondeviolin]

Just moose lately...which is not atypical for our area. Though, I never get bored of seeing them. They are so goofy-looking. :)

[Saddlemomma]

Yesterday I saw a falcon dive-bomb the little birds snacking at our bird feeders. You should have seen the explosion of about 15 birds fleeing and heard the shrill screeching. I couldn't see whether or not the falcon got one or not.

[Scarlett]

I was so sure ds and I saw a Lynx....it just didn't look like a bobcat....the ears had that tuft.....but apparently we don't have Lynx in the area so it must have been a bobcat...or a house cat. Ha ha.

 

And it did that same thing as OP said...it crossed in front of us and then stopped in the Pasture and stared back at us.

[lmrich]

Two coyote in our backyard, sadly they got our beloved cat and leaped the fence. We live a suburb of Atlanta  and our backyard is not wooded or very large. They were hiding under our magnolia tree. My son heard it and saw it too. So awful. I saw another coyote on the side of a busy road. 

 

My dad and I saw a large heron in the tiniest creek. So odd that he would be there; it was a temporary creek because of all the recent rain. 

 

I have seen a black bear and her three cubs in front of our mountain home playing - so cute and fun to watch.  

 

I love to watch wildlife...just not killing my pets. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I haven't seen them in a past year or so, but a couple of years ago we had a pack of 4 or 5 coyotes in the area.  Lots and lots of small dog and cat "lost" posters went up in the neighborhood.  I kept my indoor/outdoor cat in because of it but she escaped and we put up our own poster and never saw her again.  Our current cat is an indoor only cat because of it.  They were brazen too.  There was one on our driveway when I got out of the car one night and he just stood there watching me and didn't even try to move away.  (I didn't get too close!)  

[Dicentra]

I've "liked" everyone's posts because I love to hear everyone's stories but I just wanted to say that I don't like it when folks lose livestock or pets. :(  We've lost two barn cats - one just this past fall - and it's never easy.

 

I was looking at the paw print of one of my Pyr/Akbash crosses in the snow yesterday after we got home and was thinking that I was glad I knew the critter that made it or I'd be worried.  My big boy's paw print is bigger than the palm of my hand. :)  He and his sister do a pretty good job of keeping most wild critters away from the house and barn.  It's just unfortunate that the barn cats go a-wandering without their big, furry canine protectors.

 

The lynx was about 5 or 6 km from our place so I'm not worried about predation.  A friend of mine who retired from the MNR (Ministry of Natural Resources) listened to my description and figures it was probably a lynx and not a bobcat.  Both are residents of the area.  Cool. :)

[athomeontheprairie]

I have a young buck that has decided my drive way is where he should stay. I drive home 3 nights a week. I almost hit him EVERY TIME. dumb deer

[Dory]

A friend of mine got some pictures of a wolverine this winter. I have watched a local cougar grab full sized sheep out of the fold, jump a six foot fence, and bounce through the tree tops with the sheep still baaing. Came within 20 feet of a momma bear with twins and last years cub still with her when I was younger (that was a heart stopping moment). We have a fox that come through our yard regularly and used to entice our dogs to play with him and run off until we built better dog fences (poor fox lost his playmates). I get excited when the trumpeter swans come back in the spring. I haven't seen any of those yet this year though. My dh almost hit a bobcat on the back roads last week.

[SKL]

We live in a city, part of a metropolis, yet close to a national forest.  We get a surprising number of "wild" critters running right through our yard.  Foxes, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and many many deer.  We've even had skunks, raccoons, and squirrels take up residence in our basement.  :/  Lucky us!  My kids' daycare used to have wild turkeys out back.

 

A bear was recently sighted not far away from our neighborhood, in someone's backyard.

[Jasperstone]

My eldest daughter, saw a fox in the suburbs running across busy traffic a few weeks ago.

[creekland]

I walked into the barn one night, only to watch a mother coyote and her pups jump over the back door! A .22 took care of that!

 

This is what happens to any fox daring to show itself around here.  It doesn't have to be us.  It could be our neighbors (on any side).  I suspect someone has done in some of the red tail hawks too as we used to see far more than we do now.  (Shooting hawks would be illegal, but I'm not sure that would stop some in our area.)  There are still some as we see a single bird two or three times per week, but we used to see multiple birds daily.  Perhaps the more dominant of these drove the others off.

 

We keep aware for coyotes.  So far they aren't in our area, but I'm told they are progressing east.

 

Losing livestock and/or pets makes seeing certain wild critters more of a declaration of war than anything positive.

[Lizzie in Ma]

Very cool!

 

While I was at lunch last Saturday, there was a Harp seal rescue on the beach.  We got to watch the whole thing from our table!

[Abeille]

About a month ago, we had a large flock of wild turkeys ambling through our suburban back yard. Our yard backs up onto a fairly big forested area, and we often have deer passing through. We love watching them, but our bloodhound sees every deer as her personal nemesis and voices her opinion very loudly. Some of them startle and run when she goes off, but the more canny ones have figured out that all Molly can do is bay at them through the windows so they stay put.

[kwickimom]

I had a bobcat walk under my deer stand this year. I got some video of it- they are a lot bigger than I thought! People here in southern IL see them all the time. I have bald eagles land in backyard in January every year. We have some awesome pics of them. We raise deer so I see those all the time lol Coyotes walk through my yard and across my patio al the time- woke me up a few nights last week because they were right under my bedroom window. They are annoying. 

 

A lynx would be awesome to see. There have been reports of sightings of mountain lions here, but I have yet to see one of those. 

[TheBugs]

We were driving home from town yesterday afternoon around 4:30 when an animal crossed the road about a kilometer in front of the vehicle.  It didn't really move like a deer so I thought maybe it was a large dog.  Didn't really move like a dog, though, either.  As we got to the point where it had crossed, I slowed down and stopped.  There, about 20 meters into the bush, was a lynx - just sitting and staring at the vehicle.  I've seen quite a lot of wildlife living in this relatively rural and isolated part of Canada, but I'd never seen a real, live lynx before. :)  Dd and I debated whether it was a lynx or a bobcat but based on the ear tufts, the tail, and the size of it, we're pretty sure it was a lynx.  It stared at us for a few seconds and then turned and walked away further into the bush.  I love living here. :)

 

Anyone else had any interesting sightings or encounters with critters recently?

Yes! On Monday a bobcat was in our yard. We just moved to this new place in Florida and now have a backyard. We were doing  school at the table and saw this beautiful cat in outside. I reached for my phone but by that time it was gone. We went outside but couldn't see it again. It was so cool. :)

[athomeontheprairie]

A friend of mine got some pictures of a wolverine this winter. I have watched a local cougar grab full sized sheep out of the fold, jump a six foot fence, and bounce through the tree tops with the sheep still baaing. Came within 20 feet of a momma bear with twins and last years cub still with her when I was younger (that was a heart stopping moment). We have a fox that come through our yard regularly and used to entice our dogs to play with him and run off until we built better dog fences (poor fox lost his playmates). I get excited when the trumpeter swans come back in the spring. I haven't seen any of those yet this year though. My dh almost hit a bobcat on the back roads last week.

The wolverines, Cougar and bears would be slightly terrifying to me. Wolverines and bears don't live here. Officially, neither do cougars, and yet we've seen them! Last summer my girls were on the pasture at a pond when my dh and grandpa Took off on the 4-wheelers to get them. From where they were working they could see the cougar, and our kids! we have yet to let them go back out to that field unaccompanied.

[KrissiK]

We have 3-4 raccoons come up from the river and eat our cats' food at night. The cats just sit there and stare at them. We've started bringing the food in when it gets dark. Raccoons are creepy. I always though they were cute in pictures, but they growl and are big and not the least bit cuddly.

[Wheres Toto]

We had a flock of wild turkeys in our yard a month or so ago.  We see black bears a lot in the spring and fall.  Red tailed hawks, red shouldered hawks, tons of birds.  Lots of deer, we have a few that bed down every night in the brushy, hilly part of our yard.  

 

More unusual, we've seen a coyote, a red fox, a bobcat and a bald eagle.

 

We live on a river so I think we see more than usual for suburban NJ.

 

[lea1]

I have a very old cat who likes to be outside when it is warm out so I leave food out for him.  This summer I was feeding a baby skunk and a baby opossum on our front porch, just beside our front door. We have one of those long skinny windows next to the door so we got a very close up look at them.  One evening I opened the door to feed the cat and surprised both myself and the baby skunk (he was really cute).  Fortunately he took off and didn't not leave a bad scent behind.

 

We see lots of deer here and once in a while we see a coyote.  One day I was driving on a neighborhood road nearby and saw a huge tarantula.  I stopped and took a picture of it because I have never seen one around here in the wild.  Scorpions are also big around here.

[Guest2]

Our dog treed an opossum last night. We're in a suburb of the forth largest city in the US. So weird. Coyotes are around, we hear them, and feel for those of you that have them close. They used to walk our tiny fence line when we live in California . Our teenage son would take our medium sized dog for a walk and see them,. It was pretty scary.

 

A few weeks ago we had to stop and let the wild ginea hens cross the road. Cue punch line.

[MomtoCandJ]

Just seen a bald eagle across the road when I went to get dd1 off the bus.