Outdoorsy shite. The outright boastful thread...

[FryingNemo]

And here it is. Please boast here about wildlife spots that did not occur in March.

I start with a white rhino!

dh, who was then not dh but on the cusp of becoming dfiance, and I were travelling around Oz. I was reading at the time Matt Ridley's the Red Queen (fabulous fabulous book if anyone is interested in sexual behaviour of our own species and how so often it is also seen in other species, particularly in birds)
Anyway we were both fascinating and greatly amused by the male Bowerbird and what he creates in order to attract a mate.

I think I was particularly interested that different types of bowerbirds collect and then display different types of item (blue things was my favorite) depending on what the females in their particular branch of the bowerbird family have a penchant for, and also how the lady bowerbirds will do a tour of the local bowers giving them a good inspection to check out who is the current best collector of stuff, before they choose who to mate with.

It amused me to think of what competing (human) males would lay out in front of their bowers for my delight and ultimate woo-ability. df put forward many suggestions and I was wooed myself by his thoughtful if only fantasy displays of stuff that I like.

So amazingly whilst out on a walk one day in the Northern Territory we came across a bowerbirds bower. I cried, I really cried as it was so perfect and neat and all the collection of shiny things and leaves and stuff had been neatly sorted and displayed lovingly out at the front. Never saw Mr Bowerbird but it didn't matter. I saw all his hard work and that made me very happy indeed.

fascinated, we were fascinated. we are indeed also fascinating but that is by the by.

Good spot slubber! (have also read the red queen-v v interesting book!)

. It will gladden your heart.

That bowerbird nest spot must be one of the loveliest spots possible.

If male humans did this, they would get it all wrong and lovingly display their collected Facts about diesel v. petrol fuel economy to impress their bird.

If Outdoor Shitists did it they would display nature spots (in a scene-jazzed diorama).

Oh that is lovely Slubber. I have a tear in my eye.

I saw that when it was on the box. It made me sniff and wipe my eyes as well. Lovely male bowerbiards.

If only males of the human variety behaved in the same way

Oh <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Yellow-eyed_Penguin_MC.jpg/220px-Yellow-eyed_Penguin_MC.jpg&imgrefurl=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-eyed_Penguin&h=330&w=220&sz=28&tbnid=jxbXOGIFMfYK3M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=60&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dyellow%2Beyed%2Bpenguin%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=yellow+eyed+penguin&docid=g8sTw1ACK8HqyM&sa=X&ei=KAdrT4_qCYie8gOSuPyyBg&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAQ&dur=524" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here by the way. It was just swimming around Stewart Island. I saw one shuffling along another beach too, which made me suspect they're not actually that rare, and I'd been taken in by this boastful NZ DOC ranger-type.

I too have seen that oft photographed Rhino in Chitwan National Park, Nemo.
It woke me up by running through the gardens outside our lodge thingy.

So I'm told, I didn't have my lenses in so was not sure what was going on Saw it again next day during the elephant safari.

Turtles where Dalyan river meets sea in Turkey.

Grey seals in a marshy river just off a main road near power stations near Hartlepool.

Watching dolphins playing off beach in California with fabulous sunset as backdrop.
Dolphins racing the small fishing boat we were on in the Caribbean (honeymoon).
Dolphin popped up from nowhere about 3 metres away when I was paddling up to knees, not in a boat, in gulf of mexico.

Got to love those dolphins

Shall repeat mention the seal pups on Lincolnshire coast. The proximity afforded and sheer number make it a WILDLIFE SPECTACULAR. Every Briton should go and see it once.

lincstrust.org.uk/reserves/nr/reserve.php?mapref=15

Gulp. Sniff. The bowerbird's nest is just heart-aching, slubber.

I think grey seals are actually my favourite animals. More than tigers. More than penguins. More than dolphins. More than anything.

Ariel as you drape yourself across a seaweed strewn rock do they come and companionably snooze beside you?

Every damn time.

We once went to the Minack and the show was cancelled because of impending storm. We saw a big seal from the cliff path instead, and thought it was a good trade (esp as we got returns for the show on the following night anyway). Wonder if it was one of your friends, Ariel?

Sitting in our tipi on Rosemarkie beach watching the dolphins playing almost close enough to touch. Shame about the midges.......

What was the show Grimma?

Something based on Alice in wonderland/through the looking glass.

The previous year was the Tempest, which presumably is more your sort of thing? (it was brill, they even managed to make it rain at just the right moment!)

Oh no, I'd be up for anything at the Minack.

Titanic the Musical was a memorable one.

The Minack really is the place for culture (though Titanic the Musical might be stretching that description) and Outdoorsy Shite combined

Seashells, we saw a grizzly bear in BC too! granted, it must have been a kilometre away and the other side of a wide river, and was lumbering off in the opposite direction

We also watched Black Bears fossicking around for crabs under rocks on the seashore on Vancouver Island. It was a water safari trip (so probably doesn't count - we've been on a couple of whale-watching trips in Canada too, and seen orcas, grey whales and sea otters) but in little Zodiaky things and the motor was off so it was very peaceful. The crabbing bears weren't remotely bothered by us. They also take people out by canoe, which part of me would have loved, but I was scared that that would be the part of me that the bears would eat. Can't get away from bears very fast in a canoe.

Actually, I've just remembered my most favourite animal spot. Nothing very exotic if you live in Greece, but while I was backpacking and mooching around Greek archaeological sites, I found a clutch of tortoises in amongst the remains of part of Classical Athens, right in the middle of the modern city! The smallest tortoise would have fitted into a teacup and was unbelievably cute. I stayed beside them all afternoon and was sorely tempted to smuggle the tinest one away to a better life on a Cycladic island (but luckily sanity intervened and he's probably still there).

we found some tortoises at a historical site in Turkey... DD was far more interested in them than the fact that we were in the ruins of what is reckoned to be the church of St John (the one who wrote the Gospel)

Why did I not remember this before? A few months ago, I walked out of my garden and said a properly laconic hello to my laconic elderly neighbour, who nodded at me laconically and then nodded laconically up at a tree over the road and said (laconically) "There's a vulture in that tree." Which there was. It had been on the run for a few days or weeks and its owner came and tempted it down with dead things.

And a couple of years ago I was walking on a path near my home and a llama ambled by. Five minutes later a car driver wound down his window and said "This might seem a daft question, but ..." -- and I was able to cut him off by saying "Yes, I have seen a llama and it went thataway."