Strange / different animal encounters

[Bowsnbucks]

I can share 2 stories of really different critter interactions I've had.
In my teen years, we had a wild squirrel mother that raised several broods in the neighbor's unused, detached garage. The mother squirrel got fairly comfortable with us tossing peanuts to her and kept getting closer to me on our sidewalk. I got her to take peanuts from my hand and she got really comfortable with that. So I told my parents I was going to try getting her to come into the house for peanuts. After about a month of trying, she came in the house, across the kitchen floor, took the nuts and ambled back outside. She was so comfortable with me I eventually coaxed her to take the nuts off my belly as I lay on the floor. She even took time to EAT some on my belly !! Having a squirrel sit there & crack / eat peanuts on my stomach was a thing none of us thought we'd ever see. When it would head back outside, it didn't race for the open door. It would take it's time & look around, investigating every nook & cranny.

The other involved a fawn of the year and it's mother doe.
After bow hunting in the last week of October, I was walking by moonlight on a woods road about a mile from my vehicle. The leaves were loud and crunchy and I wasn't being particularly quiet. As I approached an intersection with another woods road, I stopped to listen for any deer snorting or running away from that area. I was shocked to see a fawn and a doe eating acorns there in the moonlight. The fawn walked over to me, sniffed my camo pants, rubbed it's nose on my pants, and then started eating acorns at my feet !! The doe walked over to about 10 ft. from me, made a little "blat" noise to the fawn, and started eating too. She eventually walked away from the fawn & me, eating calmly as she went. The fawn was chewing acorns at a distance of 1 ft. from my leg when it sneezed & blew slimy acorn chop all over my camo pants. I had been talking softly to the 2 deer as they were so close, and it never seemed to alarm them at all. They calmly walked off, eating acorns as they left me there dumbfounded for the close encounter I'd just had. Total time for this up-close encounter was approx. 15 minutes.

How about you guys ?? You guys must have had some strange run-ins with critters over the years. Let's hear 'em !!

 

[Bill]

Weirdest thing I ever saw was duck hunting one January. Hunting the bay side at the beach, probably 500 yards from the inlet to the Atlantic Ocean.

We had a seal pop his head up right in the decoys. It took us a while to figure out what it was, we don’t have seals around here. He hung out watching us for quite a while.

Talked to some guys at the boat ramp and it visited them also.

We agreed to keep our mouths shut because in this crazy state they may have shut down our favorite late season spot.

 

[Kooch]

Maybe some of you guys have experienced this before.

Maybe 8 years ago, when I first started deer hunting, I was walking in to a public land spot, well before daylight. I'm walking a trail through an open area and came to an intersection when for some reason I stopped, and just had a feeling "something was up". I didn't hear anything, smell anything, it was pitch black so I didn't see anything. I stood there for what seemed like 10 minutes, was probably like two minutes really, not moving. Then a deer blew and absolutely exploded out of the brush right next to me off the trail, maybe five feet away. I nearly shat myself.

That same night, I was walking OUT of the woods closer to the truck, with a "melt your retinas" bright headlamp on. I spotted two sets of eyes bouncing up the trail straight to me. It ended up being two yearling raccoons. I stood still and they bounced right up to within three feet of my feet before I lost my nerve and said "hey". They almost turned inside out running away.

 

[SwampCat]

Several years ago, my son shot a sow feral pig at a feeder. She had three little pigs with her and they just kept coming back to the feeder. That was in May. By Christmas, they weighed about 60 lbs - two black boars and a red sow. My son’s buddy killed one of the boars right after Cristmas and the red sow disappeared not too long after that. The other boar kept coming back. He would even come up to the house and follow me back down to the feeder when I was on my side by side. He got where he would feed out of my hand and I could scratch is ears and back. He never did like my wife - popped his teeth at her. He was going on two years old - probably 180 to 200 lbs. he was a good trojan pig. There would often be another pig with him, and Moe (my wife named him) wouldnt run off at our approach and the other pigs didnt know what to do so they just backed off a few yards in the brush - and I would shoot them with my bow. i was scratching his back and my wife made a noise in the side by side and startled him. He jumped to the side and hit me in the side of the leg, knocking me down. He ended up standing right over the top of me. I thought any second he was going to rip those cutters through my stomach. He stepped off of me and went right back to feeding. I told my wife right then I was going to turn the feeder off so he would leave. Painted him with orange spray paint so someone might not shoot him right off. He hung around for about a month and then we didnt see him. Who knows - I might have killed him a year later. Black boars all look pretty much alike.

 

[Native Hunter]

A few years ago I was bowhunting the edge of a field and in the back of the field each night just about dark I would hear what sounded like a woman screaming. I couldn't see anything and it really sounded strange. Finally, after about a week I found out what it was - a blue heron came flying into the field while it was light enough for me to see him. It was strange. I associate those birds with water and it was 500 yards away from the nearest stream.

 

[Kooch]

Sitting in a treestand one morning before first light, same area as the other story, fresh and new to hunting. I heard what sounded like a baby crying and being strangled, maybe. Not that I ever heard a baby strangled. Anyway, years later, a buddy and I went coyote hunting. He played the "rabbit in distress" sound. And, then I recognized what I'd heard years before.

 

[MickT]

I caught 2 hellbenders on a trotline about 5 years ago.


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[bigbendmarine]

Two strange pet stories - both took place in a rural multi-acre home development my father created when I was a young boy. Our home was on the largest lot with about 200 acres of woodland.

We always had dogs but rarely cats -- no members of our family were particularly "cat people." Honestly don't remember how we got a kitten but know we did and my brothers and I named it Reggie. It was all black with the exception of a near perfect diamond on its chest. We had it maybe half a year and it disappeared. For a few days we romped around in the woods looking / yelling for it to no avail. Some number of YEARS later in the dead of winter my Dad asked me to go outside to get some firewood for a fire we had burning in our den fireplace. As I opened the door a MUSCULAR adult cat about as ripped as Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime pushed through the door, walked through the den like he owned the place, and curled up right in front of the fireplace. Male black cat with a perfect diamond on his chest. After about an hour of warming up in front of the fire the cat got up, went to the door, looked longingly out, and I opened the door for it. The cat walked out into the night and we NEVER saw it again.

Second story was even spookier at the time, but funny looking back. One Halloween night when I was in high school and driving I went to a Halloween cookout a friend had in the woods where we all told ghost stories seeking to spook each other out and get female friends eager to be held / protected. The drive back home to my parents place required driving about a mile through thick woods with several twists, turns, with the last turn just shy of being a U turn that required slowing to a near crawl to navigate. One particular spot always reminded me of the old Patterson bigfoot film and that night on the heels of all the spooky stories I remember feeling a bit uneasy as I made the twists and turns. Just as I was creeping around the final U turn... BAM! Something BIG and FURRY SLAMMED against my driver's window!!! Pretty sure my heart actually stopped as I stared directly into two eyes looking right at mine. Probably took me 2 seconds to realize that what I was looking at was a huge lab-dane mix dog that belonged to one of our neighbors. Crazy thing was it never chased cars or approached me while driving with the exception of that lone night.

 

[SwampCat]

Once had a gator join the party

 

[Tap]

When we 1st bought our property back in 1985, I took my SIL out to tour it. As we walked up toward the corn crib, I noticed a kestrel sitting on top of it and just as I pointed it out, it took off and started flying down towards us. I expected it to veer off but it just kept coming. Before I knew it, he was in my face and flapping. I assumed he was attacking me so I batted him to the ground with my hand. We stood there looking at him in disbelief. A couple seconds later, he was in my face again and I started to think he was trying to land on me so I stopped swinging at him. He landed on me!! For the next hour the bird would take off and return to me over and over again. I eventually started looking under barnyard debis for crickets and grasshoppers to feed him. He was the coolest bird!
And I can tell you this...even the smallest of the raptor family has wicked talons. When he landed on me he dug his claws into my hide. I can only imagine what it would feel like to have eagle talons piercing the flesh.
I assume this bird was an escapee from a falconer. He showed no fear of humans.
Not sure how to rotate these pics. Sorry.

Looking for bird food! It's kinda funny...it was only a few days before this event, that I read an article about kestrels and how much of their diet was crickets and grasshoppers. I never really thought about raptors having insects in their diet, but I can tell you that this guy sure liked them.

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[Bowsnbucks]

That's a really kick-a$$ story Tap !! I doubt any of us here would have reacted any differently. Who'd have thought it was an "escapee" ?? Great interaction though. To me - it would be pretty cool to have a kestrel come winging in while on the property. Thanks for sharing the story.

 

[Tap]

That's a really kick-a$$ story Tap !! I doubt any of us here would have reacted any differently. Who'd have thought it was an "escapee" ?? Great interaction though. To me - it would be pretty cool to have a kestrel come winging in while on the property. Thanks for sharing the story.

Thanks and you're welcome.
There is actually more to the story, but I did not witness the other events so I can't vouch for total accuracy.
At the time, we didn't have the house built and didn't live there but the neighbors that owned the corn crib (they sold us the acreage) were putting a new roof on their old farmhouse. The kestrel hung around the roofers every day. They were feeding it lunchmeat and the thing was pretty much "tame". Someone down the road heard about the kestrel and decided that they wanted it. So they showed up with a cage and the bird flew down to them. The guy opened the cage and as he put his hand on the back of the bird to push it into the cage, it squirmed free and took off. Nobody ever saw the kestrel again. I have to assume it was an escaped bird from a falconer, but was it smart enough to realize it didn't want to ever go back in a cage again?? Who knows?
I know the roofer part of the story is true because there were several witnesses that vouched for the story. But I can't say for certain if the cage part ever really happened. Bummer though, I really wished that bird would have stuck around for a while.

 

[homegrownbucks]

Got a lion pic on our property, not a mountain lion, an African lion. Made for some interesting walks out in the dark that year. This was on an original game vu less than 1 megapixel digital camera

 

[Bill]

Got a lion pic on our property, not a mountain lion, an African lion. Made for some interesting walks out in the dark that year. This was on an original game vu less than 1 megapixel digital camera

Yea that's nuts. I think I'd just go ahead and sleep in. Might even walk out before it got dark with both hammers back.

 

[Telemark]

Homegeown, was that near Zanesville?

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I was raking leaves in my yard one afternoon just before a thunderstorm was supposed to blow through. I turned to grab a pile and there was a small bottin buck standing about 10 feet away looking at me. I expected it to take off. It just stood there and watched me and walked towards me. It let me reach out and pet it. It hung out in my yard for a day or two and then disappeared again. I figured it was either sick (EHD...tameness is a symptom) or domesticated. Maybe somebody thought it would be fun to raise a fawn and then realized they had a buck. See vid below.

Weird Deer

 

[Tap]

I was raking leaves in my yard one afternoon just before a thunderstorm was supposed to blow through. I turned to grab a pile and there was a small bottin buck standing about 10 feet away looking at me. I expected it to take off. It just stood there and watched me and walked towards me. It let me reach out and pet it. It hung out in my yard for a day or two and then disappeared again. I figured it was either sick (EHD...tameness is a symptom) or domesticated. Maybe somebody thought it would be fun to raise a fawn and then realized they had a buck. See vid below.

Weird Deer

Crazy. Thanks for filming and sharing.

 

[j-bird]

Only strange thing I have had .....in the "wild" was I had a stand in a tree and that tree was home to a screech owl. He would come out every evening and bounce from limb to limb when I was in my stand and look at me like, "Excuse me.....Sir. Your in my tree. Sir? Sir!" It would get pretty close and never got hostile or anything, but it was certainly entertaining.

 

[Tap]

My uncle once had a horned owl attack his back quiver that contained arrows fletched with natural turkey bar feathers.

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[dsinwi]

Not really strange but while on stand one afternoon I had a robin fly directly at me and nearly hit me in the face. One of those deals where I'm watching it fly at me and finally realize at the last second it going to hit. I duck and the bird veers off in a flash. That's was weird. It was later in the evening that I realized he dropped his payload on the front of my hat...