Wildlife You have Seen on Tour (page 2) - CycleBlaze

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Wildlife You have Seen on Tour (page 2)

Gregory GarceauTo Bill Stone

That's a great picture Bill, but almost a little too close for comfort.  While on my northern Great Plains tour in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I used automobiles to shield me and my bike while passing this herd of bison.

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2 years ago
Brent IrvineTo Gregory Garceau

You mention loons and right away I kind of sighed. Our house overlooks a lake and during the summer the loons start calling at sunrise - I never tire of this.

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2 years ago
Jean-Marc StrydomTo Brent Irvine

Being homeless cycle travellers we often look after other family members homes during the times we are back in South Africa instead of touring somewhere else in the world.  My sister lives on a small game reserve which means that we occasionally ran into issues and had to take precautionary action such as in this encounter with some giraffe.

Time to dismount.
Time to step back.
Time to stay back.
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2 years ago
Brent IrvineTo Jean-Marc Strydom

That is an incredible sight!

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2 years ago
George HallTo Brent Irvine

There have been some interesting replies already and I stand in awe of those folks who have encountered mountain lions and zebras and dingos and other such exotic creatures.  I travel with a telephoto on my DSLR  in the morning hours so I can photograph wildlife; it's in the handlebar bag where I can access it quickly.  I have encountered all the usual wildlife here in the U.S. while crossing the continent; deer, antelope, elk, bison, bear, coyotes, fox, as well as numerous small critters and birds.  My most memorable encounter was a very early morning outside of Wisdom, Montana;  The Coyotes Were Talking To Me .   We Sapiens  have destroyed so many species as we evolved, and today we continue to do so by our unsustainable population growth.  Will we learn and change before it's too late?

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2 years ago
Scott AndersonTo Brent Irvine

We stick to pavement and away from really remote areas any more, so we don’t see many lions and tigers and bears.  Still, there’s the occasional interesting wildlife sighting even in urban areas if you’re lucky enough.  Like earlier this week, when a six pack of Javalina lazily sauntered across the bike path just in front of us: 

Or yesterday, when a roadrunner spotted us spotting him and dashed through the creosote to see if we’d packed a lunch for her:

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2 years ago
John SaxbyTo Brent Irvine

Thanks, Brent.  (Where in northeastern Ont., BTW?)

Whole lotta things come to mind, with precious few photos, unfortunately:  Most recently, in late August, I had a mini-tour up into the Madawaska Hills northwest of Ottawa, returning home along the Rideau Canal.  My journal of that is built around a great blue heron, a bear, and a butterfly.

Raccoons are commonplace in our neighbourhood, and on tour, I try to keep my precious panniers far away from their claws and teeth.  Ditto deer -- but I've only ever seen moose while paddling in la Vérendrye.  Loons, bless'em, are part of summer nights.  Less attractive (that's the generous phrase) are the black flies, as you will know.

On another ride in the Madawaska Hills some years back, a big rangy timber wolf ambled out of the bush about 25 metres in front of me, and loped across the road.  I'd never seen a wolf at such close quarters before -- magnificent creature.

I had a couple of encounters with bears--one black, one a grizzly--on my ride through the Rockies and Cascadia in 2016. Both creatures were trying to navigate cars, so took little notice of me.  That said, I was thankful to be downwind of the grizzly, who on his return trip wandered across the road about 50 metres in front of me. Yep, "time stood still, rapid intake of breath", etc., etc., all the clichés are there for a reason...

I've been greatly privileged to spend some fifteen years in south-central Africa, spread across several decades, but not a lot of that was on two wheels, pedal-powered or motorized.  The list of creatures, though, includes: more snakes than most people want to know about (as I've learned); crocs and hippos at much closer quarters than expected; elephants near and far--tho' they're such delicate and intelligent creatures I was never worried; more baboons than I care to think about, 'cos I was uneasy about them; big cats, most of them thankfully at a distance; herds of giraffes along the banks of the Luangwa River; eagles in the high country and on rivers; colossal fruit bats; bees on cliff faces; hyenas on a hiking trail; a leopard coughing in the night, beyond the ring of the campfire light; and both ants and antelope in huge quantities. The nighttime insect symphony in the southern African bush is like nothing I've ever heard in its intensity and range of pitch.

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2 years ago
Lyle McLeodTo Brent Irvine

Who needs to tour, this well fed female Elk has just finished off several 'planted-this-summer' shrubs in our front yard a few minutes ago! It is -26 C so she probably needs them more than we do.

Lip smacking good shrubs, 26 Dec 2021

The overwhelming majority of wildlife we've seen have been on local day rides or short local tours. No surprise as we live in a major wildlife corridor. Elk, White Tail Deer and Bighorn Sheep are a near daily occurrence. A few times a year we run across Black Bears (sometimes in our yard) and every once in a while a Grizzly (thankfully, not in our yard!) and twice,  Mountain Goats and Wolves. Cougars .... we only occasionally see their tracks while mountain biking.

Grizzly munching on dandelions beside Hwy 40, Kananaskis Country heading towards Highwood Pass, early June 2017. It's fairly normal to see Grizzly's on this stretch of road (closed to motor vehicles) in June. Lots for them to eat and still snow in the alpine.
Herd of Bighorns on the same stretch of road, on the same day in June 2017. They were after the salt along the pavement!

After several multi-month tours in Europe the closest we've come to a 'wildlife' encounter is this in Puglia ....

...even the dogs are running away!
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2 years ago
Jean-Marc StrydomTo John Saxby

more snakes than most people want to know about (as I've learned);

Snakes and Africa go hand in hand.  Before I started cycling I used to run but I seldom saw snakes while training, mainly because my footfalls would alert them in time to hide.  When we started cycling we started seeing many more snakes in the same areas where I used to run, I assume because they didn't relate the sound of wheels with danger.  While many of them were dangerous venomous snakes such as Boomslang (Dispholidus typus) and Puff Adders (Bitis arietans), most were harmless.

A harmless (to humans) Common Slug-eater (Duberria lutrix).
Spotted Harlequin Snake (Homoroselaps lacteus). Also no danger to humans.
A large female Puff Adder (Bitis arietans) seen on our last South African tour. I have kept further away from her to take the photo than when I was when I took those of the Slug-Easter and Harlequin Snake above! I think snakes are incredibly beautiful but I am careful to keep my distance from anything potentially venomous..
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2 years ago
John SaxbyTo Jean-Marc Strydom

Great photos, Jean-Marc!  We shd probably curb our comparative instincts here, or readers should avert their eyes...

I taught for two years at a secondary school in the Luapula Valley, in the north of Zambia. There were snakes a-plenty in the neighbourhood: puff adders especially liked bushpaths in sunny spots; green mambas used to hang out in quiet pools in our rock-strewn swimming stream; a colleague had an unpleasant close acquaintance with a spitting cobra, the worst effects of its venom limited by his oversized glasses. We were warned about, but no-one ever saw, a Gabon Viper...  The same colleague spat upon by the cobra kept a python in his house (I'm not making this up), which of course he named Monty.

And so it goes.  There's dire story about a scorpion, too (to which I was only a witness, thank gawd), but we won't go there.

Happy new year (with a new hub) to you and Leigh, and safe journeys,

John

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2 years ago