Wildlife Spotting/Tracking

Anybody have any cool wildlife experiences? Last year I found Mountain Lion tracks in my backyard. They were fresh in the new snow and beautifully big (I have some pictures but I have to dig 'em up, so I'll post them later). I identified them using my handy-dandy tracking book (well, not so handy-dandy--it's 2 1/2 inches thick).

I found something in the woods the other day, and had no idea what it was! I turned over a rotten tree stump and a tiny pink creature scrabbled away into some moss. It had a dinosaur-like appearance, and for a split second I felt like I was in a Harry Potter story, witnessing a new magical animal.

I guess it was a featherless baby bird, but they aren't usually that large, or hiding in tunnels in the ground, hence my surprise.

Maybe it was mole. Or some sort of pygmy rat thing I was reading about that don't have they have buck teeth. But I don't know if that's what you saw, because I'm pretty sure they're from south America.

Last summer a bear was on our deck looking in our window (bears don't usually live around here, but they came down because of all the fires we had), but my mom didn't wake me up to see. A few years ago we found a dead deer the woods by our house, and we had to call somebody to come get it out. I don't think I'd like to get paid to remove dead animals......

A couple days ago I went to a wildlife rehab center with my friend Fiona. We separated beetles and mealworms, but we couldn't feed the birds because there was a fussy lady, and lots of them were sick. A little boy brought in a swallow that somebody had thrown a rock at.

As I used to work in the bush a lot, I used to see quite a lot of wildlife.  One of the best experiences was to see a number of the elusive Lyre-birds.  I was working in a water-catchment reserve, which is off-limits to the public, so the birds were less shy.  On another occasion in a nearby location, I was amazed to have one of these birds walk right past my feet.  Most Australians have never seen one.  While living in Western Australia I found a Thorny Devil lizard.  These tiny fellows have spikes all over them and move very slowly.  I brought it home to show my children, and placed it on an ant's nest, as they eat ants.

David

Previously Jessika Hodgson wrote:

Anybody have any cool wildlife experiences? Last year I found Mountain Lion tracks in my backyard. They were fresh in the new snow and beautifully big (I have some pictures but I have to dig 'em up, so I'll post them later). I identified them using my handy-dandy tracking book (well, not so handy-dandy--it's 2 1/2 inches thick).

Here's another bear incident, at about three this morning:

I was asleep, and woke up to some snuffling, grunting, barking, and jingling. My dog and something else. My parents and brother have been sleeping on our back deck for the past few nights, but the animal (bear, I guess you'd already know). So I sat up and looked out my window. I saw the patch of white on my dog's fur, and heard her tags jingling.  We were at a party a few houses down yesterday evening, and people were talking about the bear and two cubs that's been around lately. One got into our neighbors' garage a week ago (and again early this morning). So I figured that's what it was, and walked to go tell them that the dog was barking at the bear, and you may want to get up.  Our neighbor just called and said it broke the glass in the side door to his garage. We thought the crash we heard was some plates or something outside, because my mom's a mosaic artist, and has a bunch of glass and ceramic stuff in her studio, and just outside her studio.  Anyways, my mom and I walked out to out front porch, and saw the dog barking at a shadow that snuffled, growled, and grunted. I saw the bear, and a smaller bear trying to climb a tree. The dog and big bear were only about six feet away, and the one thing you don't want to mess with is a mama bear. My mom whistled and called "Lucy," but what got the dog in was the word "dinner," which I thought of.  The first thing I did when I woke up later was look at the tree the little one was trying to climb. I found a scratch mark. Later on when I was outside making sure my brother didn't freak out and run around or something, I saw a shooting star. So  I guess staying with my brother instead of fending off the bear (which walked off anyways) was worth it. I heard them walking around in the woods for a while later.