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Animal run-ins


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:anicute: Hey, a few of us were driving back today from caching and the topic of mountain lions came up because of some of the areas we were in, and all the warning signs. Everyone in our group is relatively new to GC'ing and were curious to hear of peoples run-in's with wildlife.

 

So, if anyone has any cool stories to share...we'd love to read them. Sorry in advance if this topic has already come up!

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Late one night doing a forest night cache, myself and a female friend, shine the light around, find the red reflective tacks that look like eyes, walk to them and do it again. On about the sixth set of tacks, as we were just a few steps away, the red eyes jumped up and ran off... about scared both of us to death!

 

Only a racoon, but man did it get our attention! :anicute:

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While looking for a cache I ran across what a dead wild turkey. Neck and wings stretched out over the ground but otherwise looked fine. Took a step closer to try and see better and suddenly it jumped up and took flight right over my head. Then I spotted the nest and eggs. The old dead bird trick suckered me too. A good mother. I was second to find I think.

 

This cache ---> http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...5e-ad9f953b8f55

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I rounded the shoulder of a small hill once and came face to face with a goose sitting on her eggs.

Not sure who was the most scared, her or me. She was the one who got her wits back about herself first. Chased me half way around the pond before heading back to her eggs.

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Not sure these are considered cool but we sure have run across alot of them, various species, since we've been caching. Came across this little guy this past November. :anicute:

 

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My wife spotted the cache first then watched as i looked for it. I finally saw the hiding spot and retrieved the cache while she sat on the log directly above it. We looked through the cache and signed the log, then when i got ready to replace, i noticed the critter coiled up right where the cache was. Snakes don't bother me none but i knew better than to just blurt out that he was right under my wife's derrier. Of course she knew something was up when i asked her to move a couple of feet to the west but at least she didn't let out a yelp. I moved him out of harm's way then we headed for our next cache.

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I was signing the logbook at a cache last month when I heard something approaching quickly through the grass behind me. I figured it was a person, when they started to get close I turned around. The old heart quit beating right there, I am looking eye ball to eye ball with a white tail buck not more than 20 feet away, The buck looked just as startled as I felt as I don’t think he saw me before I turned around. The deer and I stared at each other for a few seconds (felt like several minutes) before he turned and quickly left in the same direction he had come from.

 

This is not the first time seeing a wild deer but it is the closest I have ever been, and closer than I care to again.

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I was looking for a cache on top of a mountain, and when I reached the edge of the rocks (awesome view) I broke up a meeting of a couple of very large birds. I'm not a bird man so I don't know what kind they were, but they were circling overhead waiting for me to leave. Not but a minute after I left, I turned around and they all landed back where I just was.

Wasn't scary or anything, but it did remind me of that movie Birds.

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I've told this story a thousand times, but here it is again. She's one year old and 70 pounds now.

 

My wife and I headed out for a day of geocaching, we started with GCQFZ3 Alligator Alley where we found a 6 month German Shepherd Black Lab mix puppy that had been left behind. My wife and I had made a picnic lunch that day and we ended up feeding all of our sandwiches and our water to the puppy. She was very sweet and crawled into our laps when we sat down at the table. We had no way of taking her anywhere so we called animal control and they picked her up. I called them a couple days later to see if they were going to adopt her out. They said that they didn't adopt to the public and if nobody claimed her in 5 days she would be put down. We couldn't allow this to happen because she was so sweet and playful so we picked her up and now we have our very own geo-hound! Her name is Henrietta. She recieved a clean bill of health from the vet and she is doing great and seems very happy. Oh, and we found the cache too.

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Edited by The_Matneys
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I had a similar experience as The Alabama Rambler, but with a bit more, er... "animation." It was about this time last year, I was in Bristol, TN going for FTF on "The Deep Dam Cache," a scuba cache up there. It was late, I knew nobody, so I went night caching. Two of the caches were waaaaay off down a dirt road, near the dam so no one was anywhere near but me. I was halfway there when those nagging thoughts started to creep into my mind.... "this is BEAR country," "no one knows you're out here," "my cell phone is nearly dead," etc. Getting more and more nervous. Add to this the eyes that keep disappearing from my flashlight beam in the distance (both behind and in front), and the more-than-friendly sneaky $%#&$ DOG that would be RIGHT on my heels when I turned around a few times. Scared me more than once!

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Do dead animals count? I found a complete raccoon skeleton very near a cache once. The skull was in perfect condition, so I brought it home.

 

If it did, I think I would get a prize, I seem to find more dead ones than live ones. Been cacheing for just a month now, and the two dead deer spring to mind. An a host of other smaller animals and bones.

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Here's my animal story from my log of Bolton Notch Lookout, GC5C9B:

 

May 27, 2002 by Gator Man (1638 found)

 

Mission aborted! I was about 40 yards up the trail, when I came upon a wild turkey sitting in the path. I stood very still, expecting it to turn and run, but instead, it slowly got up and started straight for me. Seems I had come across mom and a brood of chicks. She wasn't very pleased with me and intended to let me know. Good thing I always carry a walking stick with me, or it would have been ugly. She circled and parried with me, looking for an opening as I headed back down the trail. She was very determined, and kept after me WAAAYYY longer than I thought necessary, in fact she escorted me almost all the way back to the car. There you have it, defeated by a turkey. I'll try again in a couple of months when the little turklets are grown.

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I've posted this here before, but it was such a special thing for me. I went out to shoot the Indianapolis Museum of Art grounds on a pretty snow day. There is an adjacent nature preserve, where I own a cache, and several caches in the formal gardens of the museum. I saw the prints in the snow before I saw the deer, and my fotsteps were so quiet in the fresh snowfall that they didn't hear me coming. suddenly, there she was, not ten feet in front of me. and I hear a shuff behind me, and slowly turned to see another, and realized I had walked into the midst of 5 adult does, pushed out of the preserve by floddwaters. They were trapped in the formal gardens in a wooded corner near the fences of Michigan Rd and 46th St (FAST roads, heavy traffic, inner city.) They had nowhere to go, but were calm and curious and allowed me to shoot their pics. Two of them even followed me for awhile when I walked off.

 

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cooper's hawk, 2 weekends ago in Fishers, IN

 

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Beware of Cat(s) cache, Cloverdale, IN at the Exotic Feline Rescue Ctr. They had a cougar escape just last sat that is still at large. News article

 

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I have lots of wildlife in my gallery. OK one more: Sandhill crane migration, Jasper/Pulaski Preserve, IN

 

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As I was searching for one cache, I found a 4-ft rattlesnake. As I approached, it raced right beside me and into a hole under a hollow stump, turned around and came halfway back out, acting very aggressive. The hole under the stump was obviously its home, and it wasn't about to retreat. I then could see the cache in the hollow stump, but the snake wasn't going to allow me to get close enough to retrieve it, so I finally decided to just let the cache be. I was FTF, but I wasn't going to sign that log. I notified the owner about the den under his cache, but he didn't seem worried. I don't know what happened to that cache, because I didn't intend to go back.

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did someone say snakes?

 

Rat snake, Wayside Repose cache, Lebanon IN:

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Eastern Bullnose snake, Degrees cache, Holliday park, Indianapolis In

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Rat snake, IN Dunes State Park

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Fawns, IN Dunes State Prk,

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Great Blue heron, IN Dunes State Park (lots of wildlife that day!)

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Edited by 2qwerqE
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I don't know if this one would count or not, but it was really scary. He tried to put up a fight, but he started sweatin' too much and it must have got in his eyes or something. I got away unharmed.

 

ricky.jpg

 

I'm just back in the game, but I have seen all kinds of things out there in the "wild" which is why I'm a little leery about seeking some caches I am reading about. I used to be out hiking so much a few years ago, and the only time I have ever been spooked at all was when I would come across another person out there.

 

A bear just wants to be left to being a bear, and to protect its young. A person can have any agenda. I would absolutely hate it when a hunter would be looking at me from his rifle scope to see if he knew me. If it isn't obvious, the rifle was pointing at me as he was looking.

 

I'd say the dead skunk with its entrails spread out like it swallowed a lit firecracker was the most stinkiest moment out there.

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I was looking for a cache on top of a mountain, and when I reached the edge of the rocks (awesome view) I broke up a meeting of a couple of very large birds. I'm not a bird man so I don't know what kind they were, but they were circling overhead waiting for me to leave.

 

Maybe they were buzzards, and were pondering if they could somehow push you off the edge, and thus make themselves a nice little dinner :(

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I saw a very large mountain lion at a watering hole after performing cache maintenance. It was well after dark, so I didn't even notice the mountain lion until I was within 100 feet of it. Needless to say, I backed away and took a different route back to my car. :(

 

I've seen/heard many rattlesnakes.

 

I've walked back to my vehicle to discover coyotes lounging in the shade underneath it.

 

Most unusual (to me), I once had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a flock of wild turkeys that were wandering along the highway.

 

Oh...I've seen a few squirrels too. ;)

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