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What Animal have you seen in the wild, that was a rarity for you ?

In my case it was a Wolverine. Fortunately the Wolverine was on shore...we (my family) were in our freighter canoe...close to shore.

I've been lucky to see Wolves, Bears, Moose, Fishers, Pine Martins, Badgers....Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles, Great Gray Owls, Horned Owls, Snowy White Owls, Turkey Vultures, etc. ...among others.

No Cougars, Bobcats or Lynx as of yet. I would only want to see a Cougar in the wild, from a safe distance.
 
These:

Kudamundi
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Howler Monkey
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Sloth

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Just had my first sighting of feral pigs on a trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Have only seen one bob cat and that was almost 40 years ago.
 
Being a bird enthusiast, I keep my eyes peeled for them. Rarest sighting for me was a hawk owl in Wisconsin. They're normally residents of muskeg and tamarack bogs in the remote regions of Canada. I got some good photographs of the bird; it actually flew up to me and my best friend when we were trudging around in the below zero weather, trying to figure out how we'd get it on film. We had our shots in 20 minutes.

For mammals, it was a fisher. I was sitting at the kitchen table at the home of the same friend, when we saw this animal bound into the yard trying to catch cottontail rabbits. Pretty exciting.

Don
 
^^lol

Mountain lion and bobcat are probably the most elusive I have seen. But the rarest animal I have seen is the Tule Elk. Around 4000 animals are left now, pretty cool to see them in the wild!


-Xander
 
My wife and I saw a mink run across the back yard. We have plenty of wildlife although in Louisville. We live on four acres well inside the city limits and have fox, deer, hawks, snakes, raccoons, opossums, chipmunks, coyote, and of course groundhogs, and rabbit.
 
Saw one of these along heavily wooded RR tracks in the suburbs, Indigo Bunting. The thing was neon blue, absolutely electric:

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But the rarest was this on a trip out west:

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Jackalope? I've got one mounted on the wall.

Unusual or unexpected for me, probably a black bear and two cubs in the FL panhandle. Happily they went the other way.

I stood about 6' from a golden eagle after I interrupted it eating one of our squirrels. About a 30 second stare down and off it flew with its meal.
 
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I saw a moose in the Adirondacks and more than one bald eagle. Nothing unusual about that except both supposedly vanished from the Adirondacks years earlier. Also, I ran across some giant salamander in central Georgia once, this weird yellow and black creature. Definitely a lot scarier than a rattlesnake.
 
As you can see I'm not a photographer but... I saw this wolf some years ago in Banff NP in Alberta Canada. I spent a couple of decades living in the Rockies and would see a wolf maybe once every two or three years. This is the only one I ever got a photo of. It was jogging along the fence that keeps the animals off the Trans-Canada highway between Banff and Lake Louise.

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I saw my first ring-tailed cat this last season. I have had several mountain lions come in on me while calling turkeys. I need a BIG tree behind me now to feel comfortable by myself.
 
I saw a moose in the Adirondacks and more than one bald eagle. Nothing unusual about that except both supposedly vanished from the Adirondacks years earlier. Also, I ran across some giant salamander in central Georgia once, this weird yellow and black creature. Definitely a lot scarier than a rattlesnake.
Your giant salamander is known as a hellbender and it is quite rare. Efforts underway to preserve it. I've seen one in the wild while trout fishing in NE Tennessee. Totally harmless despite its appearance and ominous common name.
 
Your giant salamander is known as a hellbender and it is quite rare. Efforts underway to preserve it. I've seen one in the wild while trout fishing in NE Tennessee. Totally harmless despite its appearance and ominous common name.

I looked at some pictures of people holding the hellbender salamander and the size is about right. It might have been out of its normal habitat down that far South. Though considering typography and rainfall, it makes sense that a few might have migrated down.
 
Sasquatch, we spoke for a bit, he said his brother is a mod here. He's not as tall as reports suggest, but his feet are huge, which also disspells the rumor about large feet, since he was Au Naturale.:biggrin1:

I spotted his brother at a meeting in Las Vegas. I was surprised to learn he likes blackjack.
 
Being a city dweller I don't get the chance to see too many wild animals. Although last summer while playing golf just outside of Houston I saw a pair of Bald Eagles along the Brazos River.
 
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A buddy and I were driving about dusk some years back when a lynx ran across the road in front of us. We talked about that for weeks.

I would mention some of the boys that my daughter used to drag around, but I don't think they're all that rare.
 
The wife and I were walking our dog in the mountains of New Hampshire a few years ago and a cougar came off of a ledge and walked across the dirt road we were walking on about 50 yards in front of us. Our dog (who is not a chicken normally) started to whimper quietly.

Glad the big cat decided not to wait for us and crossed when it did.

Needless to say we turned around, walked home, and called NH fish and game who promptly said. "Oh you must have seen something else, we don't have any of those in the state". Yea sure :lol:

Doing a quick google search it looks like someone else spotted our friend also and they were lucky enough to have a camera with them at the time

http://www.newhampshire.com/article/20120821/NEWHAMPSHIRE03/708219874/-1/newhampshire
 
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