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?

2 is Australia. Once a big kangaroo told me to back off by swiping at me, very swift and fast but didn’t touch- I could feel the air move as his hand passed mine by less than a millimetre. Several times lorikeets would come and sit with us on the balcony- they’d come down when we were singing happy birthday.

Walking down a long quiet road by the sea in shetland, singing to myself and no one around for miles. Suddenly realised I had an audience of seals popping their heads out of the sea, wondering what this strange human behaviour was! Always sang to the selkies (seals) after that. Also on shetland - puffins, orcas, minke whales, seals...

I am sure many long time human prisoners would rather be given a lethal injection. Being alive and suffering mentally can't be right imo.
Polar bear in French zoo is almost insane imo.

Otters, eagles and dolphins in Mull. It's an amazing place.

I really want to see a hen harrier there but haven't yet.

I've also seen kiwi birds, whales, dolphins, penguins, albatross and a colony of seals where the babies were playing in shallow pools in New Zealand

Ah ! Also glow worms in the caves too in NZ

I used to do nature walks for the RSPB. On one Dawn Chorus walk I was having a lovely time when a black backed gull did the most unbelievable shit all over me. It was in my eyes and mouth and I was desperately trying to clean myself while blind and shouting at the long departed gull ‘fuck you bastard’. It was all over my RSPB fleece too 🙁. Luckily the very nice people who came on my walk didn’t seem to mind the swearing too much but 10 years on I can still taste it every time I see a black backed gull.

We went whale spotting off the coast of Australia. The boats aren’t allowed to approach the whales but when we had stopped one came right up to the boat and stuck his nose out by the side of us. That was pretty emotional. Also in Australia we were on Philip island sitting down by the beach then all of a sudden all of these little penguins and running out of the sea past us. Not sure if this counts but on rainbow beach there was a dolphin who had been badly injured by a boat. Some fishermen took her to the harbour where they cared for her and fed her before she was able to return to the open sea. But she came back every day at the same time to take some fish from the fishermen. We were able to feed her too, I liked the fact she could come and go and that she was still free.

Also been on a beach with sea lions and their babies, obviously you kept your distance.

Where I live you see a lot of deer. I never get bored of seeing them

Last day on a short trip to Singapore. I was walking along the river. Suddenly saw about 13 wild otters rubbing themselves in the sand under some trees, then they ran into the water. I've seen an article on the BBC since where they said that the otters had returned due to the water quality improvement. One lady said she lived there and walked along the river and had never seen them. What a chance encounter and I e got photos too !

I got the last train home one December evening in a snowstorm - very touch and go as to whether we would make it home but we (eventually) did.

It was midnight, the snow was huge snowflakes falling really slowly. No-one else around as the roads were all covered.

The Pogues started playing on my iPod and it was just me and three foxes jumping around and playing in the snow.

'Twas most lovely.

@HeffalumpsDaughter 😂and 🤮

Where I live I quite often see snakes having sex. It's beautiful, they sort of dance and intertwine in a spiral.

I just googled 'snake sex' so I could post a picture. The results were NOT GOOD, I won't be doing that again

I used to live near a forest. In the spring I heard the cuckoo. In the hot summer at dusk the deer would arrive to drink at the pond. There were white deer, the first time we saw each other from a distance, I thought it was a ghost ! Magical evenings...

Sadly numerous whales, dolphins etc suffer the ill effects of being touched by tourists. Shame that just watching from a distance isn’t enough. I’ve been in boats which have cut the engine and have had whales surface just next to us which is incredible but even watching with binoculars was a great experience

We were at an outside water park in Malia, so had no shoes on and a praying mantis chased my DH.
One time I accidently hit a squirell with my car, I turned my car around to check on it and it was sill breathing, so I picked it up and put it in my car and phoned my DF to bring a carrier or something to talent to the vets, it came around and was fine, it didn't panic just looked at me as I leaned over and opened the door for it to get out, it looked at me one more time and ran off.

Aw nice thread, these are lovely.
Hand reared quite a few orphaned ducklings and chicks when I was younger. They 'imprint' on you so I was a bit of a weird teenager, wandering about the garden being followed by ducks and what turned out to be a massive cockerel. Also saved a baby jay (neighbour had shot a gun into the nest, killing the mother and two babies fell out 😡), he was beautiful and hung about the garden for months but he'd disappeared when we came home from a summer holiday.
I also regularly breathe life into the mice that my cat brings in...

Another one I just remember was in Whitby, me and my DM were sat in a bench waiting for my DF and a seal popped his head up, we watched him for about 20 minutes.

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?

The goal of most zoos is conservation and they work together to further that cause. In many zoos, the animals that are on display have often been rescued and would be unable to survive in the wild anyway. Most animals in zoos are born in zoos, they aren't going into the wild and taking animals for the purpose of putting them on display. Managing these animals can also help progress breeding programs and ensure that there is enough diversity of bloodlines to make the populations sustainable.

The good zoos (I'm talking places like Chester, Bronx, Australia Zoo) do a lot of good for species that are endangered or at risk in the wild. I don't see the animals there being too stressed out at having large natural enclosures, the food they need and a safe environment without risk of being hunted. There is so much more going on behind the scenes beyond what the public sees.

We sat on a cliff and watched puffins all around us on staffa. It was a great experience

On my first night in Australia was sitting on the deck at the back of my uncle's house looking out into the forest, a possum climbed up walked past everyone and came and sat on my lap for a good 10mins maybe longer! I thought it was a common occurance and must happen most nights but was assured is was about as unlikely as a fox coming to sit on your lap here in England! Never happened again but was a lovely welcome!

My school friend was eaten by a lion in Botswana. Another died of cerebral malaria inflicted by a Portuguese East African mosquito and never returned from the holls. My sister's friend Julia got her arm bitten off by a shark in Margate (South Africa) and much later had a kudu come through her windscreen in Zimbabwe.

We travelled to Tonga with our 7 month old baby to watch humpack wales swim under our little boat. They turned on their sides looked up at us. Swam away from the boat and breeched. It was amazing. A peak experience.

LookBackInIngres I’m not sure they qualify as ‘beautiful experiences with wildlife’.

Have seen dolphins, seals and kiwis on sightseeing trips in NZ. Best encounter was kayaking in the national park when a seal came and swam alongside for a bit - awesome. One of my colleagues had a more hair raising experience when he was kayaking around the bay and a pod of orca came up to see what he was up to!

Also had a weka try and steal my lunch :)