Best wild animal you ever saw

I've swum with Grey Nurse Sharks in Manly Aquarium near Sydney.
And a huge school of dolphins off the coast of New Zealand.

I've stroked a moray eel with my bare hands in Malaysia; released a newly born turtle into the sea in Borneo and tracked lions on foot in Africa.

All this will be lost, like tears in the rain…

A white deer.. and a almost as good, a herd of deer running parallel to me, very cool until I realised I was heading into a downhill section very very fast (as I wasn't paying attention to the track)..

Red kites big groups of them, ravens are cool, panda in the zoo if that counts

In Kenya – lions, cheetahs (beautiful animals) and even a leopard.

At home – a deer jumping through long grass as I watched from my kitchen window.

In captivity – meerkats at Tropical World in Leeds or any kind of fish in any Sea Life Centre

Saw an otter last week for the first time ever. That was great.

Heffalumps, warthogs and giraffe in Kenya

I do love big birds of prey tho – Sea Eagles on Mull are fantastic

The bear was of the black variety, near the road in the Rocky Mountain national park. My list includes:

Bald Eagles by the score (Wisconsin)
Otters (Michigan)
Possibly Golden Eagles (France and Colorado)
Marmots (Alps, Colorado)
Coyotes (USA)
Prarie dogs (USA)
Pronghorn Antelope (USA – Dakotas)
Bison (USA)
Badgers (UK)
Hoopoe (France)
Seals (Wales)
Dolphin (Miami)
Egrets (Miami)
Vultures (USA)
Kingfishers (UK)
Adder (Cardiff – slithered across the trail 6 feet infront of me)
Elk (USA)
Capercaille (Finland)
Snowy Owl (Finland)
Red squirrel (Lakes)
Red deer (not unusual in Scotland but I was in the Brecon Beacons)
Turkeys (USA)
Musk Rats (USA)

As shark encounters go, this was pretty special too :-

These little fellas up in Western Scotland

So cute… till you notice those claws!

UK: deer, fox, red kites (lots near Harewood breeding program)

Anywhere else: raccoons in Stanley Park, Vancouver; elk in Canmore, just walking through town; eagles in the sky near Kamloops. No bears or moose though

A sleeping grizzly in Bella Coola, BC – she was sleeping 8 to 10 feet away up on some rocks in the afternoon sun, we nearly walked right past her. She woke up and knew there was something there but went back to sleep 🙂 Also watched grizzlies fishing in the rivers as we were there during salmon spawning. A fantastic experience.

In this country, Sea Eagle and Golden Eagles. I hoped to see an otter last week but saw nothing but seals and sea birds.

post removed: wrong thread sorry! 😳

Ooh where was that?! I remember seeing a group of 3 40lb+ carp when I was in France at Nash Resorts…. Trouble is, they were up at one end of the lake and my kit was over at the other!

In the UK.. I'm not really at liberty to say where in the UK..
I also like when you see very tiny but perfectly formed juvenile fish in our British rivers and canals.. (that's your only clue).. such as a 2.5 inch Pikelet.. amazing and a bit cute 😯

ive seen all the African big stuff (lions, leopards elephant cheetah etc)while in Zimbabwe and the big whales when in California. i can see a red kite right now from my window and regularly do porpoise and dolphin watches just a few miles from my house but the best wild animal ive ever seen was a Leatherback turtle off the coast of west wales

oh and an otter in the river behind my mums house the day she moved – that was pretty special

these elephants were pretty special too, dusk just comng on, colours were amazing

I've seen bears, swam with dolphins but the most impressive was a pod of killer Whales in British Columbia. In motor boats you are supposed to keep 100m distance but in a kayak the whales set the terms and we were properly amongst them as they came past. Got some photos somewhere but I think I'm in a bout 6million photos from all the boats taking pictures of us.

My GF has the best photo though of her surfing Sting Rays in Australia. They look huge and you can just ride the wash under water. I wasn't there unfortunately. Also it was about a month before Steve Irwin died so they probably don't let tourists do it anymore.

Bear with cub in BC for me.

Lots of safari memories (lived in Zimbabwe for 6 years) but best would be:
-Bachelor herd of elephants spending the night in the garden of Mana Pools lodge while we watched from the balcony during a big lighting storm.
-Mana Pools again watched a pack of wild dogs hunt impala, no kill though.
-Recent trip to Kenya watched a lioness stalk zebra, didn't get to see the ambush as we needed to head for the gate as our pass was nearly up.
-Nyanga in Zimbabwe horseback trek galloping alongside a wilder beast heard through scrub and forest.

Rabbit

Wasp

Is that the rabit from monty python, and the wasp from Sinbad, those would be brill!!

This country – stag

ocean – whale shark

africa – all their stuff !

Snorkelling on the barrier reef & being side-by-side with a Mauri-Wrass that was as big as me, & Barracuda's…fastest thing I've ever seen. Always fancied swimming with those Giant Manitee (Sea-Cows) in Florida.

Uk – red kites, check, had some pretty big stags jumped out at me, last year saw a white stag in the new forest once. Baby shetland ponies are brilliant too – about the size of a dog.

Abroad sea – moray's in thailand, some weird fish that looked just like a leaf (got some video – it is a fish, it tried to escape) and turtles in egypt

Abroad land – hundreds of horrible leechs, tartantulas, monkeys, flying lizards and other stuff in thai jungle. Won't be going there again! Seriously big iguanas in maya ruins in mexico, and wild tortoise!

I'll just list what I've seen in Scotland as a form of being competitive. All in the wild of course, no wildlife centres etc.

Golden Eagle
White Tailed Sea Eagle
Otter (many times, actually 'know' individuals at a place I stay often)
Pine Marten
Badgers (I have a local set I visit Simon King style)
Foxes (including a wee cub night before last up Cathkin Braes)
Bottle nosed dolphins
Minke Whale
Red Squirrel
Capercaille
Ptarmigan
Black grouse
Snow Bunting
Hoopoe (near Chapelton E.K.!)
Siskin
Scottish Crossbill
Hen Harriers (getting pretty common TBH)
Corncrake (Hebrides)
Adder
Slow Worm

That's about it I think. Missing beaver and Scottish wildcat from my list.

I happened to be visiting a sanctuary for sick and retired circus animals in Spain when the warden was bottle feeding a couple of tiger cubs that were only a couple of weeks old. He let me feed one and then we rolled around the floor playing for a bit after. He did say that in another few weeks I wouldnt be able to do that as it would have my hand off! I can honestly say they were the most amazing creatures. Whilst feeding mine with the bottle, its eyes were just staring up at me, huge and green, amazing. The mother had been dumped from a circus when she got ill, she had leukemia and didnt have the strength to feed to cubs. Such a shame.

Sea Eagles on Mull

Another first otter sighting here! Two of them, a few weeks back while I was up on Lewis. Only got a quick glimpse before they disappeared back down towards the water, but lovely to see.

I seen a Wood Ant once 🙂

Not the most exiting animal as such but once spend 10 min watching 4 Fox cubs play, from just 3m away.

And watching Beavers swim close to my canoe in Sweden was also realy cool.

Seen a bear right by the road in Yosemite, when there is 20 plus cars parked by the road to watch it, it just doesn't seem that special.

a golden eagle flying beside the window of my jeep in mongolia, 3 feet away, couldn't get the camera ready before it was gone.

I windsurfed for a minute or so with a dolphin in the Solent 2 years ago. Saw a stag on Hindhead Common, A Hen Harrier up on Kingly Vale and had Kingfishers using my rods as perches when I was a carpist.

robin
bumble bee

In Wales.
Red Kites back in the early 80's when it was really exciting
Polecat
Kingfisher
Buzzards
still yet to see the local Otters, unfortunately missed the Hobby that used my mum’s bird table as a bird bird table and the little egret that took up residence in the river one summer.

In Berkshire.
Muntjac
Badgers
and most of the other standard woodland creatures

In London.
Sparrow hawk sat on a branch outside my office window getting mobbed by crows
Red deer
Fallow deer
brave little town foxes
ring necked parakeets, freakin' millions of the noisy blighters

In Cornwall on holiday.
spent a week camping with this little fella hopping around outside every morning

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7825467/Wallaby-colony-living-in-Cornwall.html

UK? Stag beetles…no-one ever told us they could fly….utterly freaked me out, they look amazing but are right b!tches to get out of a kitchen when they have flown in!

Elsewhere? Esturine Crocodile in Oz, Northern Territory…realy really big (about 5m long) and didnt leave a single ripple on the water when it dived. Comments like "we're gonna need a bigger boat" and " I want my mummy" really did come to mind

A rattlesnake in the desert outside Tucson. I actually went up to it to take a photo – to this day I don't know what I was thinking.

I saw a flying stag beetle once – only briefly though as it hit the visor of my motorbike helmet squarely in the middle at about 70mph. Made a hell of a mess it was only identifiable from dental records (well the bit of mandible that was left).

Well i bet no-one's managed to photograph a mole in the wild…

loads of Black bears around British Columbia
best one was a train of four of us coming off the bottom of one of the trails in Whistler Bike Park (Schleyer) to be met by a mummy bear and three juvenile bears coming up the trail
probably the most scared and excited I've ever been – we stopped dead and so did the bears, then they walked off the track into the bushes – we carried on and as we looked into the bushes where they'd left the track, they were about a foot away – we didn't look back 😀

Nearly squashed a stoat or weasel, never know which is which, at Lee Quarry a couple of weeks ago, i was on the back bit of the quarry across the top of the cliffs. Not very exciting as far as animals go but i enjoyed seeing it.

Otter at Bourtange Fort in the Netherlands, Snowy Owl at Outkerkse Polder just outside Brugge, Golden Eagles in Portugal and Crete, Griffon Vultures in Crete, Bullfinch and Hawfinch in our garden, Red Kite over our our house, Slowworms in the garden of our other house, Night Herons, Little Bitternes, Glossy Ibises, Ospreys at Rutland Water and every wild creature in our garden – bird list currently running at 36 species.

Love them all!

We have several "sanglier" come visiting around the house, the adults are huge!
The little hoglets are cute though.