Machka 

Tell us about the animals/wildlife you've encountered on your rides in 2013 ... what do you see in the fields, meadows, forests ...



There are often cows, horses, sheep, goats, dogs, magpies, cockatoos, rosellas, king parrots, ibis, herrons, and the occasional wallaby, echidna, snake, etc.


But spotted today on our ride ...

2 huge wedge-tail eagles eating a wombat, which had been hit by a vehicle. They had hauled the carcass off the road and into the field.

Sadly, in a way, just a bit further on there was a baby wombat. There's a good chance the dead wombat was its mother. But happily it was alive and chances are it was too big to attract the attention of the eagles.

Circle of life, I guess.

chil2makefun

At practically all of my rides i encouter countless rabbits etc. But once on one of my early morning rides i came across 2 roes. They were completely in pannic because of me even though i was still more than 50 metres away. I stopped and let them get away and continued my ride. One of the most stunning rides i ever made

generalkdi

As I said in the wierd things we see topic, a duck family forming a long line blocking the road. We stopped at like 1 meter from them

Otherwise, a deer maybe once a month. A moose once a year. Some foxes, racoon... etc.

Will G

Went nose to nose with a skunk carrying one of her young. Rode up within 20 yards of a bobcat looking the wrong way standing in the middle of the road. When the cat turned to look at me, the surprised look and the sound of claws trying to gain traction on ashpalt to make the getaway made me chuckle. Numerous deer. The occasional bovine or horse that has wandered out of its pasture.

vfrjo

Snakes. A lot of snakes this year. I've see one almost every ride (sometimes 3 or 4) for the last month.

nondes 

I was dive bombed several times by a hawk when I was fixing a flat tyre few years ago - of course it waited until I had taken the wheel off and the tube out, so I had to fix the flat with one eye on the hawk rather than getting out of the way.

TrojanHorse

I saw a vulture of some sort dining on roadkill last year. He was parading around scaring cyclists away from his dinner which was pretty cool.

Saw a rattlesnake last year too. Dead, fortunately.

The weirdest was a small pack of coyotes just sitting on the bike path at dawn. 4 of 'em. I rode right through the middle and they didn't budge.

Ooompa Loompa

It's rare for me to go on a ride and not see deer.

Yellowbeard

Seen a black bear and cub crossing the road. Once had an owl swoop across the road overhead. Often see deer.

The green areas in town are lousy with groundhogs that go running when they see me.

svtmike

Gnats. Lots of gnats.

xuwol7

I saw a sasquatch and it started chasing me, I ramped up my power meter to 400 watts and dropped it...lol

Seriously this year I saw an American Bald Eagle, several deer (a buck almost took me out..scary),
Ducks, geese, snakes, rabbits, ground hogs, a wild turkey,marmots, buffalo,raccoon, skunk, muskrats, chipmunk and several hawks.
Makes for a nice ride seeing indigenous animals.
My commute sometimes takes me on the backside of a zoo, but I am not going to list those, I guess they don't count...lol

xuwol7

Oh and gnats, mouthfuls of gnats. I can usually see them coming in a big swarm so I hold my breath, but sometimes they get me..lol

Clipped_in

I had a standoff with a bull moose a couple of weeks ago. He was in the road with no intention of moving. I yelled and whistles with only a leering gaze in return. Finally I reached down to pick up a softball sized rock to lob over his way. He acted like he knew what that meant and immediately trotted off the road.

Elduderino2412

I ran over a squirrel about a month ago. He got nervous and ran right under my front tire. I felt pretty bad about it.

Besides that normal stuff. Rabbits, armadillos, opossums, snakes, deer, turtles and alligators(in swamp mostly when MTBing).

mynameistaken

- Alligator way off the trail
- Armadillo on a bike path in FL (I would hate to hit one of those)
- Large black snake on a group ride (yes everyone slowed down to avoid it)
- Huge Alligator snapping turtle (last year on a MUP)
- countless deer and rabbits

FLvector

In FL we often see alligators during the cooler months when they like to warm up on the blacktop. I prefer to be the first one to go by before they raise up on all fours. Alligators used to be endangered, but now it seems there's at least one in every pond/lake. It isn't unusual to see a bunch of turkey vultures cleaning up the road kill. They seem to wait until the last second to take off, sometimes wondering if they'll take you down as they lift off. I've been brushed by their feathers a few times during take off.

Carloswithac

On the road, none. On all my mountain bike rides I have encountered numerous Jihad bunnies!

aramis

One of these ran in the road in front of me while I was doing a low-key time trial event, I was kind of in that mode and thought it was a house cat at first, then thought that was a big house cat before I noticed the short tail and huge body.

cvall91

That's awesome. I wish I got to see half of the animals many of you see on any given ride. Only "exotic" thing I've seen is an Alligator, but they're not really exotic down here in FL.

jerrycan42

Dead ground hogs everywhere here in Waterloo. It is like they're throwing themselves in front of cars this year. Especially around U-dub.

jfh

I didn't ask.

Clipped_in

Yeah, I've always wanted to see a Bobcat in the wild. But alas...

Smiziley

Deer, dogs, cats, snakes (non-poisonous so far), racoons, opossums, chickens and a peacock.

KevinF

I've twice seen black bears on rides. Once was on Virginia's Skyline Drive -- (s)he was a good 200 feet ahead, crossing the road with the cubs. I gave a good long pause before continuing on -- didn't want to chance there being one more cub trailing behind.

Saw another bear in Vermont. That bear was running, more or less straight at me. I figured my life was about to end. It crossed the road maybe 30 feet in front of me and jumped into the stream beside the road side and started doing some fishing. I just about pissed myself from that one.

I've seen a couple moose in northern New England. Countless deer, including one that jumped onto the road not 50 feet in front of me while I was bombing downhill at around 40mph. Thank God it jumped out of the way. I'm guessing hitting a deer would not have ended well for me.

Saw an eagle dive-bombing a field once; it flew out with some rodent in its claws.

FLvector

We occasionally see a bobcat and only a few times seen coyote in west central FL. I'd probably see more if my long distance vision was better. Some other odd ones are: lots of armadillos, various snakes, fox squirrels. There's a few farms that breed llamas and kangaroo, always fun to see them in the fields on one route. A kangaroo recently got loose and had to be captured. It would have blown my mind to see a kangaroo hopping down the road in this area.