nashcommguy

No, it was a wolverine. As soon as I got home I did a google search and the Wikipedia pic was EXACTLY like the face I saw. Same coloring, too. Badgers are grey/black. What I saw was brown/gold. Contacted the Gulo Society and the spokesperson contacted me said that there have been other sightings reported from the area. She said, probably it was an escapee from a private owner. This was on the Natchez Trace Parkway which is a national park winding from Nashville, TN to Natchez. MS.

BTW, I saw Bigfoot, too. Turned out it to be a hoax. Hugh Jackman in an ape suit...I was bummed.

baron von trail 

If I saw this on a bike, I think I'd be needing to clean out my pants.

nashcommguy

It was over so fast I didn't have time to be scared. As I approached I thought it was an average size dog except he moved in a 'shuffling' manner like a skunk. I had real good look a/t gold band as I passed him/her, but as I drew even it looked me square in the eye. I didn't feel any fear as I was going about 18-20 mph on a slight decend and the exchange of eye contact lasted about 3 seconds. I'll never forget the face, though. Or the eyes. He went back to his rooting the ground and I continued on my ride. When I drew even he was less than 30 ft from me to my right and didn't seem disturbed or surprised. My lighting was 2 10W Halogen Niterider Trailrat 2.0s. Pretty bright, so there was no mistaking what I saw.

Truthfully, I was more intimidated by the big bull I saw last week on my daily commute than the wolverine. And the herd of donkeys was just plain surreal, especially when they started to follow me up this 18% grade I was starting to climb when I rolled up on them. I guess they were curious.

mjw16

Grizzlies won't even mess with wolverines... I, however, would be more intrigued than scare (I hope), they're not likely to I only see squirrels, ducks, beavers, the occasional red tail, osprey, bald eagle. Nothing quite as exciting as others..

baron von trail 

I think that about says it all.

Pista Largo

My commute takes me past a small island (Just north of the 37th ave bridge for you Twin Cities types.) There are about 50 herons nesting there. In the morning they are sitting on their nests or making short forays, so there are lots of them around.

Oh, and there's an albino squirrel that I see occasionally. I think he lives in Audubon Park in Nordeast (Minneapolis).

And I saw about a bazillion other commuters this morning.

nashcommguy

Funny, when I called my son the next day and excitedly told him what I'd seen I said, "Saw a wolverine last night out on the Trace. Man, they'll back a GRIZZLEY off a kill!...and they only weigh abut 50 lbs!"
The gal at the GULO Society told me though they're unpredictable the encounter was over so fast it probably, like me didn't have time to process whether or not I was a threat. I wasn't, that's for sure. And cute(?) as it was I wasn't going to stop for a photo op or try to pet it...

baron von trail 

Petting this would be the furthest thing from my mind.
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Just_Ryan

On a ride along Marine Drive in North Vancouver last weekend I had to brake hard for a beaver crossing the road with a long branch in his mouth. Not sure why he was making the effort, since both sides of the road were wooded with plenty of fallen branches, but it made my day.

HardyWeinberg

My 8 yr old was invited to a bday party Saturday near my office, so I biked with him on my commute route. At one segment I told him I see a lot of deer there, well, deer frequently but rabbits all the time. There was nothing of course. However, on the way back, there was a deer and 2 rabbits! He was a little impressed.

Yesterday biked to the port downtown and happened to see 8 displaced salmon swimming up and down the shoreline. I wouldn't have wanted to go the rest of the way into the marina through the seals either.

rhm

Last Friday I saw something I'd never seen before. Flying past some flowers I spooked a hummingbird and it flew away, straight in front of me. They fly fast, so unless they're hovering you don't usually see them; but this one happened to be going the same direction as I, and I chanced to be looking right at him, so I saw this tiny spot with a blur of wings around it, just a dozen feet in front of me, for like fifty feet of my ride. Really cool!

Over the last year or two, not counting roadkill, I've seen all of the following:

Mammals:
I see a lot of deer, bunnies, woodchucks, squirrels, etc. I've seen a few fox, opossum, raccoon, and maybe a beaver (do woodchucks swim much?).

Birds:
Great blue heron, great white heron, and some smaller heron (green heron? night heron? hard to tell); also snowy egrets, cormorants, mergansers, mallards, wood ducks and other ducky things; canada geese; red tailed hawk; kingfisher; turkey; goldfinch; bluebird; and some more common birds.

Other:
Turtles, frogs (really funny when they hop through the beam of my headlight in the morning!), and all kinds of bugs.

hoffsquared

Box turtle last week. I used to see these as a kid all the time. Now hardly ever - so it was quite a treat.

snake_p20

I see deer on very regular occasions and sometimes see turkeys, raccoons, possum, squirrels, rabbits, bald eagles (seasonally), an occasional coyote, a fox twice and a skunk once.

ItsJustMe

Sandhill cranes. They camp out in the fields along my route at night. If I don't leave until dawn, I can easily see a few dozen of them. Usually it's still dark though, this time of year.

Other than that, just the usual; squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, possum, once in a while a coyote. Hawks and vultures almost always. Deer, turtles, frogs, snakes.

billyymc

No, but muskrats do, and could easily be mistaken for a beaver if you've never seen either in the wild. Muskrat would be more likely than a beaver.

Besides the ubiquitous deer and small mammals (rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels), I occassionally see raccoons, possum, skunks, turtles, and various snakes (garter, milk, black racer). Once in a while a fox. Birds -- turkey vultures circling over me (what, is that some kind of message or something?), hawks, kestrels, and in the pond in front of work (big pond) blue heron, white egret, cattle egret, green heron, common mergansers, cormorants, loads of canada geese, and a couple years ago a pair of bald eagles. One day last year there was a flock of snow geese that had stopped on their way north. They took off right over me -- pretty cool, cause snow geese aren't common here. There are some big snapping turtles in the pond too, and they lurk in the shallows trying to catch fish.

My wife saw a bear sauntering through our suburban neighborhood last week. He/she comes around a few times a year. I haven't seen it yet.

flammenwurfer

Not really on my ride, but there was a woodpecker pecking on a tree in the yard when I was walking out of the house to begin my ride yesterday. Other than that a couple of dead snakes is all I've seen in my limited time commuting so far.

imi

Yesterday evening I saw a toad RUNNING across the MUP... not hopping, well, like toads should hop... looked sort of like Gollum :/

Oh and still lots of the slugs we've been invaded by the last few summers (they're called "Spanish Murder Slugs" in sweden!!!)

dwilbur3

A couple of weeks ago I saw a deer in Discovery Park. I know deer are everywhere, but this is 5 minutes (at my slow biking speed) from downtown.

Now skunks, if you don't see them, you can at least smell them almost every day.

dhay

I startled a fox this morning while on the bike path. It promptly ran off into the tall grass and disappeared.

no motor?

Lots of skunks this year, rabbits, deer, geese and afew creatures I couldn't identify that ran/waddled off into the darkness.

Pinyon

If I head west-of-town at least 10-miles around sunrise, I'm almost guaranteed to see most of the following on the same day: mule deer (plural), foxes, gulls, redtail hawks, shore birds (killdeer and various plovers, too far away to tell the difference, usually), turkey vultures, squirrels, and ground squirrels/chipmonks. I also occasionally see: elk, migrating birds (mountain plovers, cliff swallows, ducks, geese, green and great-blue herons, white pelicans, etc.), wild turkeys, skunks (dead ones, anyway), and occasionally a big-horn sheep if I'm high enough.

If I head east around sunrise, I usually see: prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, and the same water and shore birds described above.

Don't forget the occasional "wild" herd of free-range cattle that get out of the fenced areas. I usually ride through 2-3 herds a year that like to block traffic.

noglider 

Zombie resurrection for a good cause.

This guy was on campus where I work. A woman looking at him said she saw him yesterday in the same spot, and he had a mate then. Today, he was standing there, quacking, perhaps calling for her.

joelcool

Part of my commute takes me through a small cylindrical shaped tunnel that goes under a 4 lane frontage road and 6 lane freeway, so it's kind of long. It's big enough for 1 car, no more. As I entered it at 20-22 mph I suddenly realized there was a turkey in the tunnel with me, and close. I got on the brakes pretty hard, and was about 10' away when she started flying towards the other end. I thought all was well and resumed pedaling. Then she started to land, and I got way closer than I wanted to, so I told her to start flying, which fortunately she did. I was less than 3' from her as she took off, and could even feel the wind from her wings. This time she continued flying through the tunnel. No harm, no foul (pun intended). Made for an interesting commute.

Archwhorides 

Loads of killer bunnies

HardyWeinberg

Saw a lizard zoom across the trail into the brush the other day.