To ask for beautiful experiences with wild animals

[freeAnneBoleyn]

I was just curious, as a family member have been to see the seals today (we come from a part of the UK where they come up onto a local beach to breed. It’s all patrolled by volunteers to make sure people don’t get too close but you can have a lovely walk and see all the rotund little babies and juveniles flobbing about adoringly on the sand)

He’s sent me some lovely pictures and it made me remember the summers I spent with my mates near that beach when regularly a seal or two would come and swim with us. We never courted it or tried to get overly close but they’d just hang out for a bit, bobbing up and down. It was lovely.

The time I rescued a stag beetle from a pint in our local London beer garden was pretty cool, and I once re-launched a beautiful sparrow hawk who’d got trapped in our shed after our guinea pigs, and there was the time I found a lame fox in Southwark (I’ve name changed as all my family and friends know this one) and persuaded the nearest Pizza Express to let me guide it into their enclosed foyer and sit with it (it was very very calm and gentle) fit two hours while a rescue centre could get a van to us. It did chew my handbag but it was only a cheap thing

AIBU to ask for yours?

@malificent7

That seal be 'Rob'!

Last year on Porthminster beach I was sunbathing and watching my DC splashing around, when I saw what I thought was child drowning. I ran down to the shore and the 'drowning child' a grey seal, popped up in between my DC, it hung around for about 2 or 3 minutes, swimming around them, between their legs and popping up and down - it then swam off towards the harbour.

It was only later when it hit me it could have actually bitten my DC!!

We saw him a couple of times after that, I've no idea where 'Rob' came from 🤣

Living in Northumberland you see a lot of wildlife.

Standing at my parents back door at night you see the bats swooping about and hear the owls.

I came home from a night out (when I was 18) to find two badger scrapping on the drive- I didn't know what to do as I had heard badgers could be aggressive and didn't want them to start on me since they were clearly in a bad mood, but as I approached the top of the drive they clocked me and ran off into the woods.

I've seen foxes and rabbits and hares and hedgehogs and deer and herons down by the river Wansbeck. Beautiful area to live.

All this is outing but I'm very boring in here so shall continue.

We go to Arran yearly so see the seals there all the time.

I was driving to a nearby town a fortnight ago and two deer were chasing each other through the fields and across the road in front of me.

Also I see to have an affinity for bees- many times I've picked up bees from the path and placed them on flowers in safer places or given them sugar water. Once in Edinburgh Zoo I picked up a big fat furry bumbler from a path and moved it out the way- you would have thought id stuck my head in a lion's mouth!!!

If you want wild British animals, how about a beaver swimming within feet of me in the River Tummel? Beautiful sunset that evening hence the rather bright colours!
My daughter and I love animal experiences at zoos. This year we have stick fed snow leopards, fed giraffes, fed red pandas, cuddled meerkats and a few more things too

When the snow was really bad this year my youngest had some breathing problems (turned out to be croup) and we ended up in an ambulance at 12.30 am,my husband took us home at about 5am and literally the roads were just a single track that had been dug out and as we went round a bend I looked into the field and there was this huge stag sitting down on the snow with its head up. I've honestly never seen anything so majestic it didn't move an inch and the way the moon was hitting off the snow it was like a painting. That was the most stressful night of my life but I just found something so strong about the deer, plus our surname basically means deer ironically.

I'm currently having a few days away in the New Forest so have been pretty much stalking wild ponies since arriving.

When I'm not stalking ponies, I visit the grey squirrels in my local park. I've spent so much time watching them that I can tell the difference between them and have developed a little squirrel friend. I take him monkey nuts and he climbs up my leg and sits on my knee while I handfeed them to him. . He's very gentle but the first time he touched my leg, I nearly had a heart attack. Pic is him sitting on the bench (next to me).

I volunteer for a fox charity in their intensive care unit so I obviously interact with a lot of foxes. It's always special. This photo is of one most recent patients - who of course I fell in love with (I fall in love with all of them!). He was very photogenic and followed me round while I was cleaning (he was loose on the floor of our unit 'getting some exercise'). I should add that he's fully recovered now and was released back to where he lives before Christmas.

Hehe I grew up in the new forest :-)

Camping at Ardnamurchin, woken up to the sound of dolphins, didn't catch a glimpse but what a way to wake up..
After making a make shift kitchen under a tree in the pouring rain (Scotland remember?!) a little Robin sat on the back of the stove and opened his wings for a warm. Every mealtime for 3 days!! The dc were amazed!! What a trip!!

I've just had a think and I've been lucky enough to have had loads of wild encounters.

Doing a lot of growing up in the Hebrides meant a lot of going off on our own as kids, taking bikes and a picnic. One time I was cycling past a little wooded copse and stopped to look at something that caught my eye - two baby deer curled up next to each other, their mothers standing a few feet away.

Swimming in a bay with my cousin when a porpoise came over to investigate. We jumped out in a panic!

Following a minke whale when out sailing one afternoon.

Sitting on the cliff tops of Staffa, surrounded by puffins and using up my entire roll of film taking photos of them. They were so entertaining!

Sitting in quiet rocky bays, watching the otters fish.

Watching the seals from the rocks, if you "bark" and clap your hands they bob up to investigate. Cheeky things!

Seeing a golden eagle land on a telephone pole just metres from our car. Amazing.

Walking up sand dunes something white emerged from a rabbit burrow - a polecat! We crouched down and watched and my dad empties a packet of Worcestershire sauce crisps next to the burrow and it ate some! Nobody ever believes that story but dad has photos.

I saw a snail changing shells on the dunes - emerged from one shell and took on a new one - I didn't know they did that?!

Watching salmon leaping in a sea loch at dusk. My brother and cousin tried fishing for them and ended up just trying to catch them in nets! They stayed in the water until it was too dark to see properly, didn't catch a thing!

Laughing so hard I was nearly sick when my dad had his toe grabbed by a huge crab - it was just like a cartoon! He was yelping and waving his foot about with this huge creature attached and nobody could help him for laughing!

We had a holiday cottage one year right on the beach. The wild goats with huge curly horns used to come down off the cliffs on an evening to the shore and we could sit at the big picture windows and watch them.

What a lovely thread :)

One of my cats went through a spell of bringing many 'gifts'. They often were baby birds I couldn't save and then 3 mice that I rescued and released.

Number 4 was a tiny baby with a broken leg. After a few days I planned to release it but it just climbed in to my hand and curled up. She's now about 6 months old and still having cuddles everyday - I feel terrible that she is alone but not sure she would survive in the wild.

Oh Mousebaby

That is so precious. Keep on doing what you’re doing.

To everyone who’s rescued/rehabilitated or otherwise helped wildlife in anyway- and just observing and appreciating it counts too I think- thanks. We’ll need you going forward

This is a lovely thread.

We have 3 squirrels in our garden whom we feed. They are very bold and ignore the dog, who ignores them back!

My DD and I have had a few encounters with a local (we assume) fox. We've met him sauntering down the road to us and again in a local lane where he stood and stared at us for a few seconds before running off down the lane.

About 10 years ago I had to get out of the car to move some Fox cubs who were playing in the road but wouldn't move. They let me approach them to about a foot and then tumbled off into the woods still wrestling each other.

We have lots of deer around here but the loveliest I've seen was a tiny fawn in the long grass with the mother stood a couple of feet away guarding her.

In the snow we fed a tiny rabbit kit with hay from our horses and dug the snow out so it could reach the grass.

We have 2 owls in the garden/ edge of the woods who call to each other every night.

We are very lucky being rural and seeing such beautiful wildlife.

My friend and I were in the sea and realised there was a seal right next to us. I remember being shocked at its size and we got out sharpish!

@baddayattheoffice I love that! You have restored my faith in humans ❤️

Camping in the back country in Alaska, we woke one night to find a bear cub sniffing round our site. Thankfully we had everything in bear canisters and there was no sign of Mummy Bear but that was both incredible and a bit scary.

I love the stories of encounters with stags - such elegant and beautiful creatures. And the dolphins putting on a show for the surfing kids, how lovely!

In Sabah, we were staying near Mt Kinabalu and were told that there were Orang Utan's living nearby that were used to humans so might be easy to see. So in the morning, my girlfriend and I went looking for them.
Within about 15 minutes we heard a noise in the trees above us and saw a mother with and youngster. They climbed down closer to us and then the mother reached down a hand.
I wasn't sure what to do , so I held it's hand for a few minutes while it looked at me. Then swapped with my girlfriend.
After a while the Orang Utan's climbed up again so we started walking on, only to have them follow us and climb down to the ground.
The mother then gave me a hug around the legs and held my hands again, long enough for my photo to take a photo.

I'm not sure if it's a compliment to be attractive to an ape or not

Two summers ago I was reading outside, it was about 11, it had been a really hot day and was just cooling down. I had my legs up on another garden chair and saw something walk underneath, I thought it was a cat until I looked, it was the hugest hedgehog yo have ever seen.

She gained the name Drucilla and she was fed for the rest of the summer.

Last summer I put food and water out hoping to see her again, I didn't but did have a selection of 5 hedgehogs (maybe more but 5 different sizes / colourings) I leave the backdoor open and they come right up to it.

I'm often awake early and if my neighbour's outdoor lamp goes on I know I might catch a glimpse of a fox.

A few years ago I had a friend's son for the day (he was about 11 so too old to say babysitting) I took him to the park with a packet of nuts.

We started by throwing nuts in the general direction of squirrels but fairly soon we were surrounded by them, one or two were curious enough to eat from our hands.

I was once driving from Portsmouth to the Midlands, it was just before Xmas so we made a very early start, 3 or 4 am. I had 2 foxes cross the motorway and then we came off the motorway for some reason, it might have been an accident, anyway we were driving through an area of posh houses and there were rabbits everywhere. It became known as 'bunny palusa'.

I have said hello to a quokka and in Bali I must have got too close to a pregnant monkey, a male monkey ran me away from her.

I once got out of my car and there was a magpie just walking around in an are of about 1/2 a square metre, obviously something wrong so I dropped my jumper over it, picked it up and took it to the vet, fortuitously across the road. My friend was with me and named him Derek, all magpies are now Dereks.

miked99 You win

One memorable one was when I was sailing a dinghy on a lake. It was a very still day, barely enough wind to sail, so all was very calm and peaceful. And then I saw, swimming beside me, the largest adder I've ever seen.

We glided along together for the whole width of the lake, and then I had to tack, and it swam towards the shore. Magical.

Chester Zoo does amazing conservation and breeding work. It’s not just about putting animals on display who you might otherwise not get the chance to see. Humans are destroying the planet. The cheetah story is lovely.

How could I forget, eating at a restaurant at a hotel in Cairns, it was foul weather so the open sides of the restaurant had been covered in canvas. A Bandicoot visited, probably to keep out of the rain.

miked that is incredible

Conservation is great n all but animals should be in their natural habitat, not a zoo. How many elephants do you know would happily pack up their trunks to move from the African wild to Chester?

Also, walking a tiger on a lead couldn’t be further from a ‘wild animal encounter’.

Honestly with some animals, although it’s incredibly sad, I’d rather not see them at all than have to see them in a zoo. Polar bears, lions, tigers, gorillas, for example, in a city zoo with hoards of people gawping all day and expecting them to be active and perform for the crowds. Just wrong. We’d do better to understand why we’ve fucked up their natural habitats and do better with what’s left. I don’t NEED to see a polar bear so much that I’m happy seeing it in concrete enclosure. And don’t even get me started on sea world

But these are lovely lovely stories with genuine wild things

Another.

At the seal sanctuary in Gweek. SlowNorris they are committed to saving seals, and other sea animals and their only permanent residents are a) animals that cannot survive in the wild or b) ones like the walrus Glasgow Zoo were going to euthanize to make room for another exhibit.

ANyway there is a path down to the estuary, on the gate to the estuary was a picture and a note about a seal that had been released into the wild but still occasionally visited. As we read the sign we saw said seal swim up to the sand and then clime the steep bank to bark for a fish.

He sometimes got a single fish ut sometimes nothing as they didn't want him to be dependent.

We’d do better to understand why we’ve fucked up their natural habitats and do better with what’s left. I don’t NEED to see a polar bear so much that I’m happy seeing it in concrete enclosure.

Perfectly said!

Sanctuaries are completely different and a wonderful way to see wild animals whilst learning about the dangers they face. I feel much better giving my money to a sanctuary knowing it’ll go towards helping a creature or two.

Honestly with some animals, although it’s incredibly sad, I’d rather not see them at all than have to see them in a zoo. Polar bears, lions, tigers, gorillas, for example, in a city zoo

I agree with this, but only once humans can be trusted to stop destroying habitats, hunting for sport, poaching and all the other hideous things they do to wild animals. At least in a zoo they are safe and alive.