On Monday i saw a Roe Deer in colinton dell, (edinburgh). Thought i was very lucky indeed - it jumped out the bracken and ran in front of me for a few seconds.
Being chuffed with that i thought it was a one off...
This morning another one (bigger) jumped straight across the trail about 2m in front - cue brakes!
What sights do you get on your commute? I reckon this is pretty cool as the dell is surrounded on all sides by suburbia. There must be a community of deer living in there all happy.
Going through Richmond Park you see hundreds, often sleeping very close to tracks. Does brighten up your morning commute.
Not a commuting "spot" but Mrs Ononeorange took a pic last week of one walking right past our kitchen window. It was a Muntjac it turned out (hear them making a strange barking sound at night. Now we know what's making that weird noise). Sorry, no bike content!
Seen a couple of deer just as I get offroad at the bottom of my street only 20m or so from the nearest houses.
Loadsa rabbits, squirreels etc, seen a fox, and on the canal I've seen herons and swans. Never seen a badger yet.
dartmoor ponies. suicidal maniacs.
In the last month I have seen brown hare (twice), fox, terns attacking a heron, stoat hypnotising a rabbit, buzzard (about 5 feet away) plus numerous other birds.
Never seen a deer though 🙁
ha - i was riding down the descent to tarf side on the tarfside horse shoe loop (round by cockcairn) and i was hammering down the descent flat out ... and i thought shit jayne is motoring shes along side me - i could hear and see something moving to me left ....
got to a bit in the trail where i could look , a heard of deer were running along side me in the heather - 2 stags and 5 or 6 wimmin and kids ... they ran past me and bounded across the trail infront - a good 6 or 8 foot wide without touching it !
and yesterday i saw a ickle kiddy deer and a buzzard at close quarters near dellavaird on my ride to work. but i do auchenblae to dyce largely on deserted roads - except for 12k on the a90 cycle path and crossing north anderson drive i only saw 2 cars apparntly im in the sticks now and this sorta things normal - we love it. If only we could ever afford to buy a house like the one we are renting (for not alot of money) Eq houses in rural areas like this are all like 200k 🙁
Not commuting but a few weeks ago coming back from the pub late at night I saw a badger in Bingham park Sheffield. It ran out from the brook and along the path for 50 yards or so. Never seen one before in the wild as it were.
Deer, herons, swans, ducks, geese. Not necessarily all on the same commute mind.
OP- same happened to me at Guisburn almost fell off in awe 😀
I saw a lady cyclist run over a pigeon at the top of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh yesterday. Don't think she even realisied and just kept going, probably thought it was just a loose cobble! Often see urban foxes if heading home a bit later than usual.
Cake eater - was she being pursued by an "admirer" from STW? 😀
Herons are normally really nervous birds but there's one on the canal that I commute on which will just stand there as I ride past inches away. I've sat there taking pictures of it for 15 minutes a few feet away in the past.
See rabbits, foxes, buzzards, stoats/weasels and (if I'm really lucky), kingfishers.
I tend to see loads of wildlife on my early morning Chilterns rides. Every ride I see a number of deer, sometimes very close up, one jumped over a fence right in front of me the other day, very graceful. Foxes, tons of red kites (they are mahoosive up close), hares (lots of them around surprisingly), and the usual kamikaze squirrels that like to run straight across my path. Oh, and alpacas, but they're not strictly speaking "wildlife" 🙂
There were 16 in the field next to our house last night when I took the furry fella out for a walk. Have normally seen groups of 5-10 across neighbouring fields, but to see so many in one gathering was cool.
On the subject of deer, I was running along the trail that parallels with Juniper Valley about 3-4 months ago, when a deer popped out from my right and ran alongside me (albeit about 15 feet away) for about 200m. T'was somewhat unusual.
Saw a seal playing around in the harbour last year (Tauranga, NZ), just a couple of yards from the cycle path. Me and a random passer-by stood and watched it for a few minutes then it swam off. Made my day.
Going through Richmond Park you see hundreds, often sleeping very close to tracks. Does brighten up your morning commute.
yer often with a few corvids on their backs having a free ride!
once saw a stoat (resplendent in winter coat) at the side of the basingstoke canal after a night ride tunnel hill area
I too see lots of wildlife on my morning rides. Quite often get foxes lounging in the long grass to the back of my house and deer nibbling the shrubbery.
We often hear buzzards being chased off by seagulls too, sounds surreal, but it's quite something to see them dive bombing a buzzard who's come to steal their young.
Also get to see a few heron on the canal too. very nice.
🙂
There are some advantages to getting up at 5:30-6am for a spin on the bike.
My favourite was a buzzard swooping down and gliding along the track in front of me before gracefully going on it's way. Really big, too. I have chased a deer along the road once as well in the same area at dusk.
Night rides are cool because you can hear snuffling and see the occasional pair of eyes...
I live just down from leith hill and sometimes commute along coldharbour lane. You get the lot - deer, owls, occasional birds of prey. Lovely stuff.
Earlier in the year when my commute was around dawn, I often saw a Barn Owl and couple of times it flew alongside me at head height just the other side of the hedge for a good mile.
Got to work with a smile those days.
deer are a common sight on my commute. In particular around Penicuik, down Pistachio and on the WOL around Colinton. Also often see Herons at Glencorse and owls if it's dawn/dusk. Foxes and buzzards aplenty too and an occasional badger that I steer well clear of. On the longer commutes I see plenty of hares around 9 mile burn area.
Saw a Red Deer just below ,coed y brynin early evening ,fantastic sight .
[i]"...they ran past me and bounded across the trail infront - a good 6 or 8 foot wide without touching it !"[/i] then went and told their mates about the road gap they had done. 😀
Saw a Zebra this morning...
There's loads of wildlife on Cannock Chase, especially in Spring and Summer when it's a bit quieter. Late last year in the dark I hooned around a corner on Cannock Chase on my way home from work and met a stag coming the other way; that was nearly brown trousers time. It stared at me for a bit (felt like ages!) then walked off... it knew who was the boss.
More recently I saw something that looked like a fox but was very dark brown, almost black... I still have no idea what it was...
See quite a few deer, young and old on the banks of the River Kelvin just past Maryhill, got quite a shock one night when one jumped the trail in front of me, thought I was getting ambushed by the Maryhill fleeto or something.
Problem is their are a number of neds /animal murderers apparently hunting the poor things,due to proximity to housing estates, one was found cut open and strung up on a washing line in someones back garden last year.
looked like a fox but was very dark brown, almost black
Sounds like the elusive 'black fox' they were after on springwatch...
Quite regularly see the odd Gruffalo.
On my daily commute out in the Sussex countryside I've seen :
Numerous badgers. Usually at least one a morning (pass a couple of setts).
Foxes
Deer - normally it's a couple of youngsters or does but occasionally I've seen the big stag (which is quite intimidating). I've had one of the large herds cross in front of me (20+). They look spectacular emerging from the ground fog at sunrise...
A couple of weasels
A couple of hedgehogs.
An unidentified BIG bird of prey that sits on a particular tree and picks off birds feeding on the fields.
There's a nesting barn owl locally. Sometimes see that - best time was when it flew about 5 yards in front of me at head hight for about 500 yds. Looks like a ghost and scared the life out of me when I first saw it (I pass through some rather creepy woods, normally in the dark)
A variety of other birdlife - pheasants etc.
Too many magpies
A smorgasbord of roadkill.
The usual farm animals.
Out in the sticks here in East Lothian i see loads, not all these daily!
buzzards, kestrals,barn owls(winter mornings)
badger set a stone throw from workshop,
loads of hares and rabbits,
odd fox,
frogs and toads on the road,
slugs and snails,
****ing crows,
working on a golf course it is basicly a wildlife reserve with alot of the above plus;
newts,
moles (arrrrghhh!)
shrews,
on and around the ponds,
eels
little grebe,
oyster catcher,
water vole,
mallard,
teal,
waterhen,
curlew,
visiting geese-pinkfeet and greylag,
family of swans on the ponds,
tawny owls in wood,
partrage
eider ducks
pheasants etc....
adjoinging fields of cows and sheeps
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.
.
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but would rather see some beaver! 😆
Go by London zoo every morning so see the giraffes and occasionally okapis, top that! Or warthogs and wild dogs if go by the canal
Inside the M25 but there are loads of bunnies round here, plus foxes and the odd badger and hedgehog, mainly when the light's going. Also plenty of Muntjac deer in Bricket Wood, despite all the people who use it. Occasional kingfisher along the river, usually all you see is a blue flash as they take off, some nice big chub in the pools too. Green woodpeckers, heard more often than seen. Local play farm has Llamas as well as the usual sheep, goats, pigs etc. Once saw two humans mating in one of the quieter spots.
i had a near miss with one just two weeks ago we both met on the same corner going at speed man i shat my self,
Seen loads of stuff in the peaks including stouts, weasels (one with rabbit in mouth) kestrels, and hares but the best by far was spotting a common lizard on the shooting cabin path near Hayfield. Never seen one since.
I'll see you the same stuff here in the FoD. Fallow deer as common as the sheep. Badgers aplenty, foxes like dogs. See the odd Roe and in a 1 place Muntjack. otters have been seen but not for a while( Well by me anyway). Buzzards are becoming a noisy nuisance rather than a novelty but the Peregrines and Goshawks are worth a stare.
Raise you a boar or ten. effing pain in the dark as they moot in the verges with their arses in the road. Being black they are rather hidden but they don't half damage a car.
Here in New Mexico, wildlife pretty common (even in my front yard in Albuquerque--coyotes, deer, and occasionally a bear wanders down from the mountains and very rarely a mountain lion). In the winter the deer come down from the high mountains to the foothills and it gets your heart-rate cranked up when one jumps across the trail in front of you.
On a ride last weekend in the Jemez mountains in the new Valles Caldera National Preserve, I saw bear, deer, elk, coyotes, numerous eagles & hawks and best of all---- nary a human being all day.
If any of you guys/gals ever come over this way and want a really cool ride, check into the Valles Calderas:
http://www.vallescaldera.gov/comevisit/
You have to make a reservation to ride and they only allow 80 bikes on a given available day(in several rides I never saw more than 6 on the busiest day) and riding only on alternate weekends in the summer (under 6-8 feet of snow all winter). Not a technical/hard ride (except for the 8200-9200 feet in elevation), but pretty magnificent scenery and solitude. Probably 80+ miles of trails/old logging roads and most of all, the wildlife.
where do i start?
my 4 month 700 mile commute, i saw many things, from birthing sheep, mating beetles, sharks, seals, chuffs, deer, snakes, etc....
I don't commute by bike but see roe deer on early morning rides round the NY Moors fairly regularly. If I understand correctly Roe deer detect movement ( and obviously scent). Certainly, a coasting bicycle coming from downwind tends to get careful consideration rather than fear, at least until you are close enough for them to either get a scent or work out that whilst you aren't strictly moving you are getting a lot bigger. At which point they tend to light the blue touch paper and leave at speed. Foxes on the other hand tend to see you from a distance away and nonchalantly fade into the trees.
The only wildlife I have seen was a very bizarre goth glamour photo shoot on the Water of Leith. Do goths count as wildlife?
I drive to work, but think myself very lucky to see Red Deer, Buzzards and Red Squirrels. I saw a Grey Squirrel this morning, which makes me worry about the native Red population here. Luckily it had been hit by another car and killed.
Do goths count as wildlife?
Wild? they were livid!
3 Red Kites, 4 Buzzards on the way home last night. Innumerable crows
mobbing both.
Oh, and 1 large moist dog egg left mid singletrack. Luckily it doesn't stick to the tread of a semi grip tyre and showered me instead 👿
In the FoD I see loads of deer and buzzards and ting, you know, all dead close up and that. There are even wild boar in there, but I've yet to see any myself, like. Saw a mole being mobbed by a load of sparrows last week on my ride in along the river.
Fox has been spotted once and loads of rabbit. There is the odd kestrel over some of the scrubland, but my commute used to take me a long the beach ( I live at the end of it) and sometimes the dolphins would be jumping at the mouth of the harbour. 😀 that fairly brightens up your day.
Most of these have already been listed, but on my commute/local rides I've notched up:
Loads of frogs
Swans
Ducks
Foxes
Rabbits
Deer
Herons
A couple of Owls (especially cool the time I was at the front of the group and it just swooped down and flew in front of me for a few metres)
Cats up trees
Bats (no one else has mentioned bats yet! Woo!)
Um, I think that's all! I do like my local rides and my scenic route to work! 🙂
Oh - and the odd Kestrel
On one lucky commute I saw:
Green Woodpecker
Small Deer/Muntjack
Hare
Foxes
Squirrels
Rabbits
Falcon/Kestrel.
Popped round to see a friend at work (North Bristol Suburbs) and saw in the wild (not including the usual suspects):
Deer
Kestrel
Buzzard
Yellowhammer
Goldfinch
Swift's
Canada Geese (flying)
Ducks (flying)
Pheasants
Partridges
& a few more I can't remember
I took a photo of the Kestrel & the Deer with my phone through a set of binoculars, not a very good photo tho.
My favourite sight is the Kingfisher that tends to race me along the Maun. You can't beat the flash of iridescent blue as it flies along.
sharki - Member
where do i start?my 4 month 700 mile commute, i saw many things, from birthing sheep, mating beetles, [b]sharks[/b], seals, chuffs, deer, snakes, etc....
😯