Rarest animal you have seen out

[m.durston]

i've not see anything rare but i have seen a pair of red kites circling around a field outside of st. albans in hertfordshire. according to the local twitchers we dont have red kites round here!
also whilst on my rounds at work i was checking my p&d machine when i noticed a couple looking under some branches overhanging a river. the guy was being a know it all proclaiming the heron he was looking at was really rare in the area. i had great delight in pointing 100m away to an island in the middle of a lake which had around 20 pairs of herons nesting!
i did see a kingfisher once on the same river along with a yellow wagtail which apparently is in decline.
in my younger days i've seen a large stag in crowborough training area, adders in various forests etc.
until recently i live in some flats next to green belt land, and we always had problems in the summer with hornets. nasty little buggers with a drone that sounded like a chinook in your living room!
the weirdest moment i had was walking in the wood next to the flats and saw a neighbour walking her cat with a barn owl resting quite happily on her arm. we had plenty of owls in the area and i did see once another barn owl resting on a wooden post bordering a grassed area happily screeching away waking my neighbours!
the closest i've got to a wild animal was a fox that walked out in front of me when i was repairing a puncture on my mountain bike, sadly i've never had a camera on me to capture these moments.

 

[AJB]

I once met a VAT inspector that was quite nice - does that count?

 

[stevesteve]

Was the Kingfisher on the trees above the little river/stream that runs beside the lakes in St Albans Park?

I was once there in the evening with a low sun slanting across the lake. It was shining straight into the trees next that must be in the back garden of the St Micheals Hotel. There catching the evening light was a kingfisher about six feet from the path. No camera of course but a beautiful moment.

I know what you mean with the herons though. I had never really thought of them as tree-dwellers but each year they raise a number of broods of large fluffy grey young in the big willows on that island.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[Joezilla]

14 American crocodile.

Extremely rare, lives in the everglades in Florida. He was a welcome site, you can tell that they pack a bigger punch that the gators around there. Look at that fourth tooth coming up from the bottom!

 

[m.durston]

Was the Kingfisher on the trees above the little river/stream that runs beside the lakes in St Albans Park?

Steve

yeah it was on the river ver but i saw the kingfisher in prae close around 200m from where you saw it.
i have also seen on occasion another nice bird up verulamium park, its that gorgeous actor from holby city Rosie Marcel who walks her huskie down there

 

[Nonsuch]

Wilderness canoe tripping Canada : Grisly bear and cub, black bear, timberwolf, beaver, moose and two calves, bull moose

 

[Kerne]

In the UK - a weasel - OK, not very rare, but I've only ever seen the one.

Canada - moose

Cuba - some purple snake over two metres long and thick as my arm (didn't hang about for a more positive identification!)

 

[Andy2112]

I suppose not so rare but it was the first time i have seen one, is a Sparrowhawk, it was perched on the fence last Sunday lunchtime. Oh, and we have got loads of sparrows in the trees at the bottom of my garden.

 

[Chris the Cat]

Huge Wild(Furious!) Elk,while wilderness cannoeing in Sweden this year,plus sea eagles on the same trip!
C da C.

 

[Scrimmy]

Just seen a Snow Goose at my local Patch Holywell Pond yesterday

 

[ANDYRAF]

I was taken to see some of the recently released Choughs two years ago and they are still doing well. When I first saw them I commented that it just looked like another crow at which my host got a little agitated, probably why I haven't been asked to visit again.

Andy

 

[firecrest]

In the UK - a weasel - OK, not very rare, but I've only ever seen the one.

Canada - moose

Cuba - some purple snake over two metres long and thick as my arm (didn't hand about for a more positive identification!)

Ive only ever seen one weasel as well, and unfortunately it going under the wheel of our car at the time

 

[tenderfoot]

I stumbled across a Haggis den in Northern Ontario last year - saw 2 adults and a baby Haggis. Left legs shorter than the right legs, just as the guide books say. Slightly furry.

Amazing.

Mungo

That is what they call the "widdershins subtype" they are particularly rare you are very lucky to encounter them.Widdershins means they traverse the hillside in an anticlockwise direction, hence the uphill leg ( shorter ) is the left rather than the more common variety which are orientated for clockwise grazing.This may be more common in Ontario. By the way, Haggis is the singular. Debate rages as to whether the plural is Haggis's or Haggi.I am unaware of the collective noun for Haggi. Furry implies you were there before the seasonal moult , or this may be another unrecorded local variant. It is believed that the moult is an evolved adaption to make the camoflage more effective in the approach to Burns night.Possibly less of an issue in Ontario.

 

[tenderfoot]

Whats the Rarest animal you have spotted while out on a bushcraft trip?

I had some killer whales come up close to me this year!

Kris

Saw a well dressed bushcrafter recently! How rare is that?

 

[Nyayo]

Some years ago went for a bimble in the veldt with Mrs N, and ended up finding several white rhino (we thought they were boulders!)

N

 

[forrestdweller]

platypus, tasmanian tiger(endangered because of a kind of mouthcancer) and eastern(?) quoll( a cat-sized marsupial; pinched my cocoapowder when i walked the southcoast track) in tasmania
echidnas on kangaroo island and the australian mainland
orcas while cycling along the coastal road on coromandel peninsula(new zealand)
stewart island tokokea(a subspecies of kiwibirds; also active at daytime)while bushwalking on stewart island(new zealand); one walked just past my backpack, but unfortunately my camera had problems with the focus so i got only one very blurry image to proof my story(AARRRGGGHHH!!!!)

a hedgehog baby sniffing on my boot (while it's mum nearly had an heartattack) and foxbabys in europe

to name only a few

 

[thewanderer]

oops missed that sentence sorr my eyes must be failing me hehehe

 

[SkogKniv]

Once I saw a Grey Fox while I was looking down into a small valley. Seeing a fox does not sound to impressive but here seeing A Fox is a treat but a Grey one is even better. Usually it will be a red.

 

[Brynderi]

In the 1990s I was working for the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) as a field officer for a farm grants scheme. In October of 1995 I was walking round a farm near Ammanford in South Wales with the farmer, drawing up a farm conservation plan.

First slightly odd thing I noticed was the carcass of a sheep that had been carried over a fence and dragged several hundred yards across a field into the edge of a narrow strip of woodland where it had been torn apart. I remember thinking to myself that there must have been some big foxes around!

We walked on parallel to the wood for another few minutes with me taking notes for the farm plan I had to write. As we reached an open area I stopped in my tracks and watched a large black cat move quite slowly between two patches of bracken a few yards away to my right, almost as though it was trying not to draw attention to itself. I was absolutely astonished and turned to the farmer and asked if he’d seen that “bloody big black thing”. “Oh, you mean the panther” was his reply. He told me afterwards that he saw it so frequently it didn’t surprise him anymore.

I went back to the office and told everyone but nobody ever believed me.

 

[SkogKniv]

I watched an entire documentary on the large black cats being seen in the UK farms and woodlands. There was a mountain of video evidence and eye witnesses, yet there were a couple "experts" denying that a few pets may have gotten lose. It isn't some cryptozoology mystery just facts that things got loose and kept breeding. I thought it was interesting.