I just heard and saw an owl! Well, I saw the dark shape swooping down in the darkness as he passed from one perch to another. No details, but it was still cool!
There are at least 2 owls nesting around where I live. They're so beautiful. I see them sometimes around twilight when I'm walking :)
There were owls living in one of the trees in front of my old house. In fact, one day I had a ruckus outside, a neighbor walking his dog, and went out to find that a baby owl had fallen from the tree. I supplied a box and held the dog's lead while my neighbor scooped up the owl and ran off to the vet with it. I never heard how that turned out.
I haven't seen any owls lately, but we had a controversy going over a bird that perches on the back fence of our childcare center a couple times a week. One coworker said that it was an owl, I told her it was a hawk. A man stopping by for a tour got a glimpse and said that technically it's a falcon.
When I was younger I was walking my dog Marley during the night. When we were walking up the main street I heard the unmistakable call of an owl, and then I saw it swoop down from a light post and glide up to a perch in the woods.
Isn't nature cool?
I remember seeing bats at twilight one time when I was at girl scout camp.
Bats! I've never seen them in New Zealand (though they are the only native mammal the country has) but I've seen them in the UK, both flying and at a talk about bats where we got to touch them. Wonderful!
I hate bats, because I've only had horrible experiences with them. When I was in highschool my family rented a cabin, and while we were their a bat flew into the cabin and dove at us. It was really scary.
The second time I saw a bat it bit a girl and gave her rabies.
We have no rabies!
I got to swim with manatees once. I was at a retreat with my youth group on Jeckyl Island (an Island off the coast of Georgia). We were swimming and something suddenly came up beside us. Then I felt something brush against my leg. They came up again and I realised they were manatees! I think I swam for an hour before I was called back to shore. :) It was so cool! They were so gentle!
I used to obsessively go to Birds of Prey showings when I was a child. Once an Eagle Owl landed on my dad's head. Those thing are enormous!
The quadrangle I was in at university had bats flying around and around it at night sometimes. When I started university I could hear them and by the time I finished I couldn't any more, which was quite an odd thing to be able to observe in yourself so directly.
We had an albino squirrel at my Uni.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/narilia/sets/620023/
Quote from: "Amanda N"We had an albino squirrel at my Uni.
What a good-looking chap!
He was, unfortunately, killed by a hawk. There has been a sighting of another one there though.
Albino squirrels! As weird as Princeton's infamous black squirrels, which I'm going to be on a hunt for in a few weeks.
That sounds like fun! I've never seen black squirrels before!
Quote from: "Amanda N"We had an albino squirrel at my Uni.
Nice! We have several here at my college too. I've seen at least four. We say it's good luck to see them. (And that's a lot of good luck, because they're pretty easy to spot.)
There was this stupid saying that if you saw him on a day when you took a test, you'd get an A.
We had a river rat in our irrigation ditch/school creek that ran through campus (nicknamed the Ganges - the river, not the rat). We'd see him at night sometimes with just his little nose sticking out of the water. I actually am one of the rare lucky ones to have gotten a full-bodied sighting of him while he ran over a patch of ice once. His name was Kiwi, I seem to remember. Though I don't know why...
When I lived in Florida I got to see a ton of aquatic life. I guess that is why I loved the idea of becoming a marine biologist at the time. I've seen wild dolphins, wild manatees, sting rays, barracuda (which I've almost been bitten by), tiger sharks (which I have also almost been bitten by), hammer heads, nurse sharks, and alligators. I've also seen a variety of fish as well, especially around the coral reefs, and I also once saw a sea snake... but that was a little too close for comfort.
Up here in the Northwest, I've seen gray whales, blue whales, and humpbacks (because they migrate off our coast), sea lions, octopus, and once on my way to Canada, I saw a porpose.
Quote from: "Eimi"His name was Kiwi, I seem to remember. Though I don't know why...
Brown and fuzzy?
I would assume so... Though to me he looked black and wet against the snow at night XD
The same week that I got to swim with Manatees, a good friend and I took a stroll around dawn on the beach. We saw a dark line across the sand as well as seagulls and crows circling around and pouncing down on the line, and went to investigate. When we got closer, we realised we had found a sea turtle's nest and the eggs had just hatched! We stayed around and kept the seagulls and crows from getting any more of the little ones. I took some pictures (which I have no idea where they are) and each time I took one, the turtle of whom I was taking the picture stopped and posed! It was awesome.