As I rolled through an s-curve and onto a small bridge, I met a red fox running towards me. It did a cartoony hockey stop and ran back the way it had come. I'd almost caught up with it as it reached the far side of the bridge where it snuck under the guard rail and disappeared.

Later that year a hawk came in from my left at head height and about twenty yards in front of my bike. It struck at a rodent in the bushes on the bank to my right, picked it up and flew back the way it had come, now twenty yards behind me. The timing of this little ballet left me grinning all the way home.