Foo - Wildlife seen on ride

G'day bikers

On my Saturay bike ride when I stoped to have lunch at West Head in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park I saw a wallaby. The park is about 40km (24.85Miles) from The Sydney CBD, NSW, Australia. This was my first ride to West Head.

What wildlife have you see on your rides?

http://homepage.mac.com/bentancred/.Pictures/Bike rides/West Head/wallaby_at_west_head.jpg

Deer and jack rabbits mostly. I have year round access to a large remote ranch where the wildlife have never seen a bike rider. The deer don't mind me much in a golf cart, but when I ride a bike they freak out. Yesterday a doe spooked from nearly 100 yards away and ran off in the opposite direction. At the same time a buck that was near her took a different direction and crossed the road in front of me and stopped next to a small tree by the side of the road. I was only about 50 yards away pedaling quietly and when he finally looked back over his shoulder and saw me. He took off like a rocket, jumped a fence and continued running for at least a quarter mile before I lost sight of him. He's probably still running. :D

I saw a scarlet king snake crossing the road last week while in Destin, Florida. Beautiful snake. "Red on black...", I'm sure you've heard the rhyme comparing the scarlet with the coral.

Rare enough. Secretive, likes in the inside of pine logs. First one I've ever seen in the wild.

One of our weekly rides goes past this suburban house that has a zebra and a couple of buffalo cavorting around with the horses on their couple of acres. That always freaks folks out when we say, "Hey. Look at that zebra." as we whiz by.

~jg

I'm always watching for birds. In the past few weeks, my top finds:

Great Blue Heron
Baltimore Oriole
Indigo Bunting
Red tailed hawk

Cows, goats, horses, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, emus, ostriches, donkeys, mules, peacocks, ducks, geese. There are some farms around here that use Llamas to keep coyotes out of the pasture. Like donkeys, they are very territorial and don't allow strange animals in their field.

On the wild side, I see deer, rabbits, opossums, groundhogs, birds, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes, turkeys, and coyotes.

.... I was a wallaby...........

Cool. I always wanted to be a wallaby.

Last ride I saw a northern pine snake, a white tail deer and I stopped to rescue a flipped over painted turtle on the roadside that was dying from exposure.

I also had many close encounters with honey bees courtesy of the dozens of hives placed near the roadside in cranberry bog country.

I saw two groundhogs doin' the nasty last year.

Lotsa birds, herons, egrets, moorhens, starlings, mockingbirds, blue jays & cardinals, a variety of ducks, red shoulder hawks, osprey even a bald eagle, bunnies, racoons, non-native iguanas,

invasive PVC Tree...
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/InvasivePVCTree.jpg
a tropical yeti
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/HiddenLakeTreeFace.jpg
;)

Ground squirrels. Lots and lots of ground squirrels. Playing with their nuts, mostly.

Nothing but those goddam squirrels!

I almost run over bunnies daily, but yesterday I saw a baaaaaby deer, it was stuck in a fence, but as I sat there and watched it, it freed itself and sprung off through the grass. It was cute overload.

Lots of foxes running around close to the river.

And bears. For wrastlin'.

I've seen a bobcat, bears, an eagle, racoons, possums, turkey vultures, beavers, Great Blue Herons, lots of deer (just never when I'm hunting dammit), elk, rabbits, porcupines, and of course any animals contained on a farm.

There is a great blue heron (maybe a gray), a pair fox squirrels, a pair snowy egrets, sometimes wild turkey, deer, and buzzards, all usually in the first mile of my commute.
If I go by my crazy neighbor's farm, I get to see a camel, water buffalo, some sort of expensive goats, and more alpacas than you can shake a llama at.

Bunnies
Snakes
Birdies
Dragonflies
Wasps

I have bike trails all through the forests on about 105 acres of land (which I call my hundred-acre-woods), so I see a lot of wildlife when I ride. Some of the animals I see: deer (lots and lots of them),wild boor, wild dogs, bobcats, coyotes, snakes, foxes, rabbits, all kinds of birds, squirrels (I like the black ones), racoons, groundhogs, ducks and geese, once a herd of goats (got loose from somewhere, I am sure), once a huge cat that sure looked like a cougar, once a huge black cat that sure looked like a panther, once a horse, another time a loose cow, hunters hunting illegally (grrrrr), and the list goes on and on.

I have bike trails all through the forests on about 105 acres of land (which I call my hundred-acre-woods), so I see a lot of wildlife when I ride. Some of the animals I see: deer (lots and lots of them),wild boor, wild dogs, bobcats, coyotes, snakes, foxes, rabbits, all kinds of birds, squirrels (I like the black ones), racoons, groundhogs, ducks and geese, once a herd of goats (got loose from somewhere, I am sure), once a huge cat that sure looked like a cougar, once a huge black cat that sure looked like a panther, once a horse, another time a loose cow, hunters hunting illegally (grrrrr), and the list goes on and on.

Ha, I read your post in email so didn't see where you were from but thought "that sure sounds like Texas!". ;)

I've seen (and heard) the big blacks cats before too. They don't officially exist in Texas but the old timers will tell you otherwise. They sure are beautiful. :)

I've seen what my friend and I will always swear was a large, black predatory cat while riding around in a field in SW Missouri. It was laying in the field so it was hard to make out. It was watching us. We didn't stick around to investigate. Of course, nobody believed us.

There was a circus in the area that was notorious for escaped animals. They did have panthers.

*shrug*

I see a lot of squirrels. Occasionally I see one in a coyote's mouth as it skips away.

There's also the occasional rattlesnake (shudder), as well as various types of king snakes. During mating season, the tarantulas are plentiful (double shudder)

Though they're supposedly plentiful in these parts, I've never encountered a mountain lion.... yet

I've seen plenty of deer, including a herd of eight that once crossed right in front of me, barely 25 feet away. There was also a memorable occasion when I came across two young armadillos in digging in the dirt at the roadside.

I almost run over bunnies daily, but yesterday I saw a baaaaaby deer, it was stuck in a fence, but as I sat there and watched it, it freed itself and sprung off through the grass. It was cute overload.
Cute++ << C++ Operator overloaded :D

Herons or cranes of some sort, squirrels, some gnus and other african animals. cats and dogs.

A cute pair of burrowing Owls the size of your hand. Came back to the same dirt bank year after year.

While riding on the main road home, there was somebody dressed up in a brown Bear costume.
He/She was standing on a corner waving at the passing traffic & I gave a big wave back as I rode pass.

Now that's the first Brown Bear I've seen in Sydney.:)

Racoons, Possum, and even an Armadillo one morning.

I see a lot of Ants.

Oh - and deer - those too.

Last Friday I saw a deer standing in the middle of the busy bikepath, so i decided to see how close I could get. The deer turned toward me and finally ran away when I was witihin ten yards. Umusual but rememberable.

Besides the normal animals, I have seen cranes, a big corn snake, and a python (escaped from circus). The neighbor lady was hitting the snake on the head with a shovel. LOL

On my ride to work very early in the morning, I keep running into this group of about 20-25 deer. They are always clogging up the road, and all over both sides of the road. Lots of cute babbies. They never run away when I come by, as long as I ride slow, most of them keep munching on grass, while im only no more than 10 feet from some of them. A few of them stare me down, but they all are used to me, and trust me I guess. I love deer but they are scary when they are only feet away, and out weigh me by a couple hundred pounds.

A guy where I work was riding in a park with his wife, and a chipmunk ran across the path, ran up the side of his wifes bike, across the handlebars, and back down the other side, and she never stopped riding. It all happened so fast. Those little buggers can run like the wind.

Just a bunch'o 'wild' squirrels trying to get between my spokes :mad:

And I saw a coyote once at a golf course.

Just last night about sundown a young buck mule deer crossed my path on the American River Bike Trail.

humans, rabbits, snakes, squirrels, horses, cows, dogs, cats, deer

My most memorable animal sighting while riding was a small group of deer on East Grade Rd on Palomar Mountain on January 22, 2006.

I commuted to the store today. I took my usual MUP. There are hundreds of non-native Iguanas
living along the path. They are pretty fast and usually hard to photograph I got a few small ones
today... and I impulsively picked up a bottle of wine at the store, just cuz I liked the label ;)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/FAUIguanas.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/WheresWaldo.jpg
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/Dino.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/LilSprocket/My%20Commute%202006/CyclesGladiator04CaliMerlot.jpg

usually squirrels....saw a crackhead once, and busted a crackpipe with my armadillos on the bike route(it was dark, didnt see it, heard a pop, stopped and looked...it was a crackpipe), no flat though....oh yeah, bunnie rabbits too.

I saw a coyote once at a golf course.

My dad and I were at a golf course in Oakland Kalifornia. There was a forest fire, and it drove out a pack of coyote's right by the 4 of us that were playing. At first we thought they might act aggresively so we all pulled out our sandwedges, but it quickly became obvious they were just there to wait the fire out.

There is no such thing as some one from MI that does not ice fish, 18 during a firestorm, I'd hate to see what kind of weather it takes to get you to stop doing something you really like.:D

The funny thing is that I truly hate riding in the rain. Won't do it unless I have to. But I'll tent camp in -20 ferinheit any time.

Less than a hundred yards from my house this morning on my way to work I saw one, then another, then 3, then 4 then several more coyotes crossing the road. I turned and slowly pedaled away so they wouldn't chase me. They didn't.

I see sheep, deer, sheep, cows, sheep, horses, birds and sheep.

Grizzly...all other animials I've seen pale in comparison.

Hi cyclists

On my Sunday bike ride I saw cows, horses and two billy-goats. My ride went past farms on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia.

....saw a crackhead once,

me too, coming towards me (and my messenger bag) while changing a flat...
may be almost as scary as a Grizzly.... much easlier to out pace a crackhead though...

When I ride on the coast, bald eagles, seagulls, seals, elk, deer, sand pipers.

When I ride inland, bald eagles, golden eagles, deer (everywhere), elk, fox, bear, turkey, vultures, hawks.

MTB: deer, coyotes, possums, rabbits, squirrels, rattlesnakes, lizards, bats, ducks, owls, hawks, and various other birds.

Road: mostly road kill, which includes squirrels, rattlesnakes, gardner snakes, skunks and today a racoon. But since people are mentioning domesticated animals, I also see live cats, dogs, humans, horses, cows, sheep, and chickens.

Good call on the hawks and bald eagles, Shifty... but you've seen a bear?! Wow!

In the mornings, there are LOTS of hares on the Springwater corridor here in Portland. I also saw a snake there a couple of weeks ago. Kinda gave me a scare :eek:

On my ride today, I was coming off a wooden bridge which has a short, steep drop and I had to brake hard when I saw a big flock of geese milling around at the bottom. Apart from that, it's usually squirrels and rabbits.

Today (Sunday) When I was on my group ride having lunch at Manly Dam I saw ducks.

Yesterday I saw two cockatoos.

Ticks and mosquito's, lots of em. and the occasional deer or snake

Let's see....deer, coyotes, lots of rabbits, indigo buntings, rose breasted grossbeak, red winged blackbirds that dive at me when their babies are hatched, turkey vultures, occasional bald eagles, red tailed hawks, a couple of perigrins. Lots of racoons, possums, skunks, ground hogs, chipmunks, and a couple turkeys.

A black redtail fox with two kits (one black and one red), coyotes (road by one that was no more than 20 ft from the trail – we just stared at each other as I rode by), redtail and swainsons hawks, bald eagles, deer. Also had a worrisome encounter with a skunk. It came out of the grass next to the road right in front of me as I was crawling up a steep climb. It had me dead to rights if it had decided to spray me. Luckily it didn’t.