What was your most David Attenboroughesgue moment with wildlife?

buried · 07-07-2017 11:15PM

Exceptional track. That 'Street Halo' EP. Beyond the Beyonds, the whole lot of it

Burial. · 07-07-2017 11:22PM

buried wrote: »

Exceptional track. That 'Street Halo' EP. Beyond the Beyonds, the whole lot of it

Yeah actually think it might be my favourite work of his. Always thought that 'Unite' track would fit in well in that EP too. Another stellar track.

Summer wind · 07-07-2017 11:44PM

One evening a few months ago I was visiting my dads grave. A fox trotted down the path towards my dads grave and stopped about 2ft away just looking at me. He walked over so close I could have touched him and stayed a few minutes. Then just looked up at me again and trotted off. Lovely special few moments.

Years ago I was on a primary school tour to Dublin zoo. We were at the seal enclosure and we were standing on a timber fence watching the seals swim. My lunch bag fell off my shoulder and landed in with the seals. One of the seals was very inquisitive and started nosing around it. A man I'd never seen before jumped the fence and got it back for me so my sandwiches were saved:D

corner of hells · 07-07-2017 11:57PM

Summer wind wrote: »

One evening a few months ago I was visiting my dads grave. A fox trotted down the path towards my dads grave and stopped about 2ft away just looking at me. He walked over so close I could have touched him and stayed a few minutes. Then just looked up at me again and trotted off. Lovely special few moments.

Years ago I was on a primary school tour to Dublin zoo. We were at the seal enclosure and we were standing on a timber fence watching the seals swim. My lunch bag fell off my shoulder and landed in with the seals. One of the seals was very inquisitive and started nosing around it. A man I'd never seen before jumped the fence and got it back for me so my sandwiches were saved:D

Was the man David Attenborough?

The Princess Bride · 08-07-2017 03:50AM

A few years ago, I'd a clocking hen who hatched chickens.
After they were born, she gathered up the eggshells and packed each one tidily and tightly into another leaving very little mess.
Watching how she taught these wee chicks to feed and gathered them under her wings was impressive.

No antenatal classes for her, just nature at its best.

laserlad2010 · 08-07-2017 02:51PM

2008 - Amazon Rainforest in Bolivia.

Our local guide took us on a walking safari deep into the jungle from where we were staying. We saw monkeys up in the canopy, and countless colourful birds.

He suddenly stopped us and motioned us to be quiet. He'd heard a rare call of an endangered bird. We all crept quietly towards the spot, listening... listening... cameras at the ready...

Just then I accidentally let out the loudest fart ever. Cue uproar from the wildlife around, my guide and my friends. I've never lived it down.:(:(

griffin100 · 08-07-2017 06:50PM

Was driving down the Mullet Penisula in Mayo about 20 years ago when something on the shoreline caught my eye. Pulled in and walked down to shore and there was a young common dolphin stranded on the shoreline. I tried to put him back in the water but it was low tide so it was only a few inches deep for miles out. So I picked him up and put him in the back of the van wrapped in a wet blanket and drove him for 20 mins to Blacksod where I put him back in the sea and off he swam.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 08-07-2017 09:06PM

A bird landed on my foot and tried to take the hairs from my large toe for its nest. Campsite in Italy, lots of people around so the little fellow was quite used to people.

Another time a bird landed on my head, as I was sitting on a rock, it was probably his rock. I asked my girlfriend if something is on my head and she started laughing. Anyway, the bird chilled there for about a minute or two and then flew off. It was in the middle of nowhere in Norway, and my OH managed to get a picture of it. It was a real WTF moment.

Jakey Rolling · 08-07-2017 09:21PM

While winter walking in the snow on a Scottish mountain, we stopped to sit on a large rock to have a cuppa. After a while we noticed a couple of hares watching us from about 20 feet away, well camouflaged in their winter coats. We then looked around and counted at least twenty of them scattered around - the freaky thing is they weren't the least bit scared, they just sat there giving us the evil eye!

ArchXStanton · 08-07-2017 09:40PM

Watching one of those lizards that runs across the top of the water,they can fairly move

Ken. · 08-07-2017 09:41PM

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

While winter walking in the snow on a Scottish mountain, we stopped to sit on a large rock to have a cuppa. After a while we noticed a couple of hares watching us from about 20 feet away, well camouflaged in their winter coats. We then looked around and counted at least twenty of them scattered around - the freaky thing is they weren't the least bit scared, they just sat there giving us the evil eye!

You have been clearly marked for death. Dibs on your stuff when you snuff it.

Tornaxx · 09-07-2017 08:02AM

Addilynn Rough Sieve wrote: »

Standing among a vast flock of penguins in Antarctica and they just looked at us with disinterested disdain.

If they were disinterested, they wouldn't have had disdain.

diomed · 09-07-2017 10:14AM

On a walking safari in Africa I spotted a giraffe in a clearing. The clearing was about 600 x 1,000 yards. I told the group. No one could see it. I spend a few minutes trying to explain it was in the exact centre of the clearing. I borrowed a camera stand and used it as a pointer so people could stand behind me and get a line on it.
Feck sake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesian_giraffe#/media/File:Giraffa_camelopardalis_thornicrofti.jpg
It is a subspecies, Thornicrofts Giraffe, only about 550 exist, none in captivity.

Celticfire · 09-07-2017 11:22AM

Was visiting in Florida and went out to the large pond that was in front of the house. Watched from an embankment that was about 10ft up from the water as tortoises swam and a baby alligator just sat there in the water. The little bugger was no more that 2ft long. Next thing he swam towards me and it was the most instinctual reaction ever to get the hell out of there...... gone like a scalded cat...

Baron Kurtz · 09-07-2017 11:36AM

Teddington Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Why did you bound away into foliage?

Thanks for this. I'm genuinely in bits at this comment

:pac:

Lady Haywire · 09-07-2017 11:41AM

Three stick out for me, being on a kayak in the middle of a lake with three otters diving under me and whistling. When I whistled back to them they even replied!
Watching a hare give birth in front of the kitchen window and then tuck it up in long grass and bound off to another section of the field (presumably to have another one)
Third isn't really wildlife but it sticks with me. I'd trained a calf for showing and she used to do this funny thing when she was nervous, she'd press her head against my tummy and try to hide her face. I sold her on and she went for breeding and two years later I got the chance to go see her again in Sligo. I walked into the field and she sniffed at me, then pressed her head against me the exact same way she used to as a calf. I started to blub like a baby

SeaFields · 09-07-2017 11:55AM

Being an angler I'm constantly out and about in the countryside. It amazes me the wildlife we have very close to, or even in urban areas, and people generally have no idea its there.

In Ireland , most memorable possibly was watching a peregrine falcon vrs magpie. The falcon was young and unable to kill the magpie but still strong enough for the magpie not to be able to get away. They tussled on the grass for ages before the falcon flew into a tree. The magpie flew away but only made it about 100 feet before it dropped stone dead. I sat only about ten feet away from the fight.

Abroad it was being in the middle of a pride of lions cleaning themselves having just had a kill. We were out early just after dawn. Spotted the remains of a wildabeast before vaguely seeing a lion in thick cover by some trees nearby. Watched for a few minutes before we saw there was actually a few lions there. Our guide took off and parked out van, totally against the rules, right in the middle of them. It was only us there and was the most unreal experience ever. Got some spectacular photos.

09-07-2017 12:35PM

Being waist deep in water at the beach, and watching an otter stalking, then killing, a salmon.

I was a young child at the time, but the image has never left me.

The otter was less than 10 feet away when it caught the salmon.

Another one was meeting a dog badger at dusk in a narrow laneway, also when I was a child.
It was snuffling along, and passed within 6 feet of me.
I froze when I saw it, but I don't think it even noticed me, it was that intent on whatever scent it seemed to be following.

A third was witnessing what seemed to be a stoats "funeral procession". (We called them weasels at the time.)

There must have been about 2 dozen of them, with about 6 of them carrying a dead stoat on their backs.
They came to a stone wall, and literally passed the carcass up the wall by alternating in groups of two at the front, and edging the carcass onto the lead pairs backs. It was amazing to watch, until one of them saw me.
There seemed to be something like a "guard" troupe, because when the first one saw me, it made this hissing sound, then a whole group of them responded with what might best be described as a cross between a bark and a growl. They actually turned towards me, and looked threatening - so I cleared off and left them to it.

What's weird is that I took these sights very much for granted at the time.
I wonder how long I'd have to spend looking for these animals now, and whether I'd ever manage to see those things again, no matter how long I spent looking?

LisaLee · 11-07-2017 10:30PM

Went to see Barbary macaques in Gibraltar and they stole my Tuc crackers!

What was your most David Attenboroughesgue moment with wildlife?

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