Top 10 Wild Animal Encounters

1) Face-to-face with Black Bear - In October a black bear came up on our deck and started sniffing around. When I peered through the patio door I dropped to my knees and looked back. We were nose to nose except for the pane of glass. It's face was very dog-like but the eyes had the cold alien stare. During the time we were looking at each I felt little except excitement but that night and over the following days the picture of the bear would vividly flash in my mind..



2) Black Squirrel Showdown -  I wrote up my encounter at https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t191-squirrel-harmony - the squirrel would later return to watch me set-up the firepit for Halloween. It simply sat up in a tall birch tree and stared at us.

3) Broad-shouldered Hawk tries to kill a Grackle

The next stage of spring burst onto stage this weekend. The 'Big Greening' occured. The growth in just two days is remarkable. White penta-leafs with yellow centers line the drive way, a field of yellow penta-leafs rubs it's eyes slowly awakening, and a pair of purple flowers graces the high-path to the point. The 'Big Green' corelates with 'BUGS' and the mosquitoes have returned. Stark takes the brunt of their sanginous attacks while the male mosquitoes tick their feathery probicus into a tree's cupping flowers.  The new foilage soon brought a treeline predator - the afternoon feeding of the black-bird mob (a motley crew of grackles, red-winged and starling) was broken-up by the scream of a grackle. The guide book calls grackles "poor but spirited singers" and I have their "harsh strained notes" thousands of times but this was new sound and it was clearly a scream.

I looked out and saw a grouse caught wings outspread in a tree, below it the screaming grackle. I raced onto the deck and into chaos. Grackles already look their going to explode when they give a normal shriek but now the flock was in panic. I focused on the 'grouse' and it promptly transformed into a bulky hawk and retreated back into the forest. I could now see a shaken grackle on a branch below. The hawk had dropped it when I came out and it had been too big to carry off. The grackle and I stared stared at each it, it was shivering.

An hour later I saw the hawk creep to the treelines edge. It was a broad-winged hawk. I went outside, there were a few feeding sparrows but nothing near it. We glanced at each other, it was as thick and round as a grouse but looked like it lifted weights. It's speckled feathers were also very grouse-like. The legs were the yellow featherless taloned kind, it had white eyeshadow and predator's eyes. A grackle is not a small bird but this eagle thought it could take it. It sat in the tree-line shadow for 10 minutes radiating bad attitude and disappeared back into the foliage.

[Notes I wrote up after the encounter]

4) Chickadees mobbing a least weasel on the Laurentian trails - I've long known Chickadees were hardcore - but watching them drive off a weasel by mobbing it and landing right beside it still was memorable. The weasel acted like it didn't care, but the cloud of chirping birds around it was hard to ignore. The weasel was in winter coat, white fur with black-tipped tail.

5) The grouse that died in my hands

One afternoon I stood up to stretch from a period of typing and a startled a grouse at our feeder. They are often visitors at dusk but this grouse was brave enough to appear near noon. Spooked, it burst into the explosive take-offs that are that birds' specialty - only to fly directly toward me and slam into the patio door between us. I watched in shock as it desperately tried to right itself, to re-assert normalcy, but its' neck was all wrong, vigorously scratching legs could not find purchase and a single flapping wing began to slow. In horror we looked at each other, as its' breast took shallower and shallower inhales. Time distorted but I believe the grouse was dead within a minute. I went outside in case it was in shock needed a warm, dark place to recuperate but the grouse was still. Within a minute. Alive then dead. I closed its' still staring eyes.

The grouse had beautiful and thick plumage with only two thick reptilian legs to remind me of the toughness that allowed it to survive these winters. I carried it to an place behind a small hill where I suspected the fox's daily patrol would discover it. It was my offering to the fox and my penance to the grouse. The next day, my guess was confirmed and I saw the fox's tracks head directly for that spot - and then carefully circle around to avoid it. Animals have their own ways and customs - even amidst the austerity of a brutal winter. By spring the grouse's body was gone, that is all I know.  

https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t22-writing-about-wendigos

5) The fox that barked like a goose

In late February a friend and I where outside at night when a crazy series of barked honks came from the forest. He was genuinely spooked and looked back at me with a mixture of concern and confusion. Cricket dutifully but slowly went to investigate (Cricket had been on my daily patrols and if I pointed at a track in the snow she would come over smell it and begin following it, she knew the fox as well as I did).  

"It's the fox," I re-assured him. I knew foxes could make strange territorial yelps from many experiences, but he didn't believe me, the noise was too strange to be mammalian. I had never heard this type of yelp before yet I knew without doubt it was the fox, it was like hearing the voice of a old friend. Still, my friend's skepticism was enough to keep me from speaking the next thought that came into my head, "This winter has been hard, the fox is impatient, so he's making a goose-call so the geese will come sooner and bring spring with them."

https://roadtonowhere.forumotion.org/t22-writing-about-wendigos

6) Five Beavers working on their lodge at Centennial Park - There is just something incredible about watching animals build something. Now make that a family doing it. Cutting wood up, floating it over, piling it up, bring paws full of mud to reinforce it, and smoothing it out with paws and tails. I sat for an hour watching them - and one of them would swim back and forth in front of me to keep guard.



7) A huge flock of Sandhills in Manitoulin - These birds are impressive individually and I have seen some big flocks but this was a field packed with over 50 of them.



8.) Golden Eagle in a tree with Ravens - A dead tree full of ravens was a nice sight for the week before Halloween - but I could not figure out why there was a big tree stump on a branch beside them. A shaggy tree-stump? What the....? It took my brain I few moments to process what I was looking at  - it wasn't some bizarre muppet - it was a big Golden Eagle sitting amongst the Ravens.  It must have been making its winter migration.



9) A Snapping Turtle - Steph had returned from work and breathlessly told me she had seen a big turtle on Grassy Lake road and that I should get in the car and come see it. That trip did not prove successful but we kept checking the same spot throughout the week and we're rewarded with seeign one of the largest turtles I have ever seen.  It was making its way from a culvert pool back toward Vermillion river on a long hike through  muddy stream-bed where only a trickle ran. I scrambled down a hill for a better look. It was like a dinosaur with thick warty skin and flat clawed feet, and it's massive neck and limbs were far too big to retreat into its huge shell.



10) The heavy-breathing Deer - During a summer night I decided to stalk the huge animal I had heard in the nearby brush over the last few nights. Night hunting in a dark forest is a trippy experience. You senses are greedily sucking up any input to form some sort idea of what is going on, you nervous system knows that a large animal is few dozen feet away, your muscles are taunt as they slowly move in as much stealth as you can muster. Then the wind shifts and blows your scent toward it (this was one of few times I could clearly witness my scent being detected) and this 'deer' began breathing like a starting train.  Huge lungs forcefully expelling air through gritted teeth or tight nose. HEEESH! HEEEESH! HESSSSH! (I never actually saw the creature but I'm assuming it was a deer)

<< It was like this noise, but 10x louder and made by a MONSTER DEER!

ALSO: that big pack of Evening Grouse-beaks last week, dozens of encounters with the Grouse that live on out property through out the year, seeing 3 Moose on a trip to Massey, the Flying Squirrel,  those few portly Racoons that raid our bird-feeder, that small aggressive snake (milk? rattler?) at Onaping falls...

Was the Fisher encounter this year?

The fisher came during Nov-Dec of 2014, so did a fairly magical Christmas morning visit from a curious least weasel - so I didn't include them.