favourite animal you've seen in the wild

Chlidonias

Chlidonias

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I'm sure most people on here like seeing animals in the wild, so I thought I'd start a thread on what your favourite animal is that you've seen in the wild. It could be because it was a species you'd always wanted to see, or because it was something very rare, or just because it was a memorable sighting.

For me, best bird is ground parrot in Tasmania because while its not extremely colourful or extravagantly-plumaged it is just a most incredibly beautiful bird and one I'd always wanted to see

Best mammal is a tough one but I'll probably go with Kitti's hog-nosed bat (aka bumblebee bat) at Sai Yok in Thailand, the smallest mammal in the world. Seeing these guys has probably been the highlight of all my Asian animal-watching

Best reptile has to be Brothers Island tuatara, and amphibian maybe Hochstetter's or Archey's frogs

Best fish I guess is a toss-up between archerfish and mudskippers because both are just really cool fish

I won't do invertebrates because while I've seen lots (especially mosquitoes and leeches!) most of them remain unidentified to me. Elephant weevils in NZ though are a bit of a stand-out amongst the crowd
 
I've never been out of Autralia so my list isn't amazing but i loved seeing them all the same. They're in order of favorite.

1) Humpback whales in Hervey Bay
2) Echidna. It was in the paddock behind our house.
3) Tawny Frogmouths. I hear them every time i sleep at our farm in the middle of the night but have only seen them once and it was in the middle of the day when it swooped doen in front of me to catch something.

I am going to Fiji this year so hopefully my list will improve.
 
Hard to decide . . .

Coyotes. I don't see them often, so it is always a very special treat to see them.

Baby sea turtle in Isle of Palms, South Carlina. I don't know which species it was, but it was a really memorable sighting.

Bald Eagle. They take my breath away whenever I see them. To think they were almost wiped out!

White-tailed deer. I see these guys fairly often, more so than coyotes but I always stop and watch them when I can. One of my most memorable sightings of one happened when I was out walking he dogs and one was running down the trail. When it saw us, it jumped into the water and swam to the other side.
 
I've seen about 20 american black bears and 6 grizzly bears in the wild, almost all from the safety of a vehicle, and a bear outside of a zoo is always an immense thrill. In Queensland I also saw a cassowary (right near Kuranda) and that was pretty cool.
 
animals in the wild

A few hundred silver leaf monkeys at Kuala Selangor , Malaysia
An echidna in Beechworth , Australia
A black and white striped sea snake in Fiji
A kaka in the hills above Nelson in NZ

In North America , I have been up close to several animals on a camping tour . These were too close for comfort , but I have fond memories of these experiences ;
In Canada I crawled out of the tent , and found myself under an elk !
In Florida ( urban area ) I came across an alligator coming back from the bathroom in the campground
As I was the designated "zookeeper" by the other campers of the group, I was called upon several times to encourage skunks away from other campers who were on cooking duties etc .

I must say that I think chipmunks are cute , also
 
Mammal, Just off the coast of Queensland a Killer whale leaped out of the sea only a few metres from our boat, very surprised to see this so close.

Birds, Seeing a flock of Black Cockatoos up close, should of taken the ear muffs.

Fish, Seeing the very large sharks just off the coast of Brisbane, could of been Jaws all over again.

Reptile, A very large King Brown snake trying to make its way into my house.
 
My list will improve after the holiday but here it is:

Mammal-Northern elephant seal or Sea otter (Both in California)
Bird-Brown pelican, Black skimmer and Turkey vulture (They are all so amazing!)
Reptile- I got extremely close to a wall lizard in Jersey (and I've never seen a wild snake!)
 
Minke Whale off the coast of East Yorkshire was pretty cool, seen with lots harbour porpoise and seabirds.

Seeing Red Kites is always nice- even though I see them most weeks. They're a real British success story in terms of reintroductions. There used to be a fairly localised population in Wales, and after the introduction of continental birds they're now widespread throughout the UK. We have a pair breeding not far from us.

Barn Owls- there's a pair nesting in our barn.

Adders- seen on the North York Moors. I guess snakes are nothing special when you see them everyday, but that's not the case for us Brits.

I have particularly fond memories of meeting a badger too. Me and my sister sat and watched a local sett. One badger, guided by its good nose and poor sight nearly ended up walking over the top of us to get some peanuts we'd taken for them!

A plague of frogs, a common animal, but like i've never seen before (or since).
There must be hundreds of other similar experiences with wild birds and mammals, but I've not been out of the country enough yet to regale amazing stories of unusual exotics.
 
One of the my best animal moments in the wild was while stalking a Large Brown Trout in in the Snowy Mountains. I successfully got to my position and cast the fly to where I wanted. The Trout then approached the fly and studied it for several seconds before quickly leaving. I then saw another movement approaching deep down and thought it was another large trout. As it approached I found it was a Platypus. It then spent the next 15 minutes either searching through the rocks on the bottom of the crystal clear water or resting and eating about a metre from my feet.

Another experience in the same area was listening to the dingos howl at night while trying to sleep in my tent.

My best experience overseas was stalking up on a heard of Musk Ox in the far north of Canada. When they spotted me they grouped up facing me with the calves in the centre, before running off, which was also spectacular.
 
Mine are pretty corny for the mammals: African elephant and bottle-nosed dolphin. Birds are much harder; I'd say Russian brent geese, royal terns, Atlantic gannets and Atlantic puffins, whooper swans, African grey parrots, palm swifts and Johanna's sunbirds - and a few minutes more thought would let me add more species. I'd have to name adders as my favourite reptiles and my favourite fish are mudskippers (the West African species Periophthalmus barbatus, aka P papilio).
My best experience was a combined mammal and bird moment, in secondary forest quite near the school where I taught in Ghana - I found myself in the middle of a small party of chestnut wattle-eyes (miniature flycatchers that fly around like large bumblebees) at the same time as a young Gambian sun squirrel climbed towards me to check me out. They aren't rare or even particularly attractive species, but it was the most amazingly intimate moment.

Alan
 
Mammal: seeing a mountain hare in the Peak District for the first time a few weeks ago - the only population in England.

Bird: too hard, so I've had to pick two. A beautiful Magellanic woodpecker landed on a tree trunk just a few feet from me in Chilean Patagonia, and photographing Himalayan griffon vultures above Manang in Nepal.

Reptile: catching a Pyrenean viper! Crikey! ;)
 
Adding Bottle-nosed Dolphin and Pilot Whale to my list. Love them! Whenever I see them on TV I'm always reminded of my trips in Florida and South Carolina.
 
I have several favourites - humpback whale off Merimbula in NSW, Grizzly bear in Montana, elk in Canada. Also was a thrill to find some sort of microbat hanging on the bricks right next to my front door 2 nights in a row!!

Birds: I always love seeing Black Cockatoos, and am lucky enough to see them quite often.
 
Beluga, manatee, Steller's Jay, Pronghorn, Fox Squirrel, Glass Lizards....and that Water Moccasin I found on my front porch a few weeks ago.
 
I have pronghorn living that hang out in the parking lot at work. I find that really cool.

My favorite wild animal sightings have been wolves, grizzly & black bears, moose, collared peccaries, cacomistles, Gila monsters, river otters, sea otters, and beaver.
 
Otters! I saw one a few years ago. It was a brief sighting, held my breath when I saw it because it was so unexpected.

Also saw a cougar very briefly some years ago, and a bobcat.
 
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great idea for a thread chlidonias, but you got in before me with the ground parrot. I was lucky enough to go on a bird banding day at a place called Barren grounds. A group of about twenty people walked through button grass trying to flush out the birds into the nets. In total, i think about twenty birds were seen that day. On another occasion i was in ther Jervis Bay area bush walking and a ground parrot flew up in front of me. This, to me, was a better sighting because i was in the right place at the right time.

Second best was banding albatross of wollongong. I got to hold a wandering albatross, it was huge.

Mammals proboscis monkeys in Borneo and bison, moose and elk in yellowstone and a black bear in yosemite.

Reptiles - a huge saltie almost twice the size of the tinnie i was fishing in up in Arnham land.

Mark, i am jealous about the killer whale. That would have been spectacular
 
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