Your best wildlife experience !

Bernard Hopkins

Snorkeling off an island on the west coast of Australia, I came almost head to head with a 3 1/2 metre Nurse shark......coasting the reef looking for grub.
now i know you shouldnt panic, but i couldnt help it .

he didnt take any notice of me , not on the menu for nurse sharks apparently.
happened just between these two points :

Also had a close experience with a Croc up in the rain-forests at a place called "Cahill's Crossing" ....... got lost one day along the banks of the West alligator river,.... day quickly turned to night and i couldnt see a thing in front of me. Nobody about for 20 miles,.....only an Aboriginal reserve on the far side of the river ! When i finally got out of there i took my t-shirt off and rung it out,... fear makes you sweat pretty badly. Scary as hell, but a nice story/memory.

Alfasudcrazy

Scuba diving in Cyprus. Lovely clear warm water. Swimming through shoals of fish. Never saw anything scarey though.

Lost one of my flippers though once on a deep sea dive. It was floating on the surface only a few inches away but I could not find it with the choppy waves. That was kinda scarey but one of the other guys found it for me. :rolleyes:

Glowing

Good thread!

Saw a wild orangutan in Borneo ... and did a shark feeding dive in Fiji where we observed a 4m long tiger shark! No cages either!

Can't beat the old wildlife experiences, can you!

Bex01

My best expierence was when I was diving in the West Coast of Australia when out of nowhere a huge whale shark came up from the deep to feed on the plankton. It came up with its mouth open & I was half afraid it would swallow me but it just turned when it saw me and I swam beside it for a while. It was massive, I was about half the size of its fin.

Another expierence was when myself & a friend were diving around Thailand and we were about 25 metres down swimming with reef sharks. It was really cool. But then we saw some guy above spear fishing so the sharks starting to get excited with the smell of dead fish & 2 sharks in particular started to circle us so we just swam away and left them to it.

Dyr

I rather liked these little fellars

Bernard Hopkins

that middle one is a st andrews cross spider,........ the one beside the key !!
i came out of a river one day and my head got covered in the spider and web,.... im terrified of spiders on the best day of the week , so i freaked a bit

had an experience one day, where i came across a wild turkey and a metre long guana fighting over a nest !! was a proper battle , but i had to step in and split them up...... i know u should leave nature to it, but i cant help but side against the predator.

Annika30

Bernard Hopkins, wow I would have been terrified! I once saw a lynx when I was out in the woods in Sweden, they are pretty big but amazing looking! I have also seen a wolf when I was out horse riding, they are beautiful.
Annika

Alfasudcrazy

Saw a little seal for the first time in real life yesterday. Was walking the dogs at Barrow beach (near Tralee) and there is a little flat rock just a little offshore sticking up a few feet from the surface and there was the little fellow sunbathing on it.:cool:

He jumped back in the water when he seen the dogs (they never saw him) and kept a close eye on us for a while - you could see his little black head popping up for air / a peek at us every now and then.

Glowing

Actually since your all posting up photos, here is my best insect/animal collection!

http://www.ballofdirt.com/entries/9772/209864.html

Dyr

Bernard Hopkins wrote:

that middle one is a st andrews cross spider,........ the one beside the key !!
i came out of a river one day and my head got covered in the spider and web,.... im terrified of spiders on the best day of the week , so i freaked a bit

I think came across another one of these guys on a trail, but we couldnt get a proper photograph of it as its web had the sun behind it..it was HUGE like five times the span of that one beside the key.

Bernard Hopkins

yer,...that alone gives me goosebumps,.... scary things !!

um and the photo collection is great ,

got myself a new wallpaper

anniehoo

A basking shark off Achill Island!! Only my 7th dive..ok meant to be a dive but ended up being a snorkel cos it was so close to the surface but superb anniehoo(geddit hehe)! Nearly freaked out but the leader told me it didnt have teeth! Still buzzin everytime i think of it. Irish waters have amazing stuff to see!

fits

Bex01 wrote:

My best expierence was when I was diving in the West Coast of Australia when out of nowhere a huge whale shark came up from the deep to feed on the plankton. It came up with its mouth open & I was half afraid it would swallow me but it just turned when it saw me and I swam beside it for a while. It was massive, I was about half the size of its fin.

Wow!:eek: I'd say that was amazing. How lucky were you???

lightening

I was in Dollymount last night surfing some small rollers on a long board when I was joined by a baby seal! He/she was actually surfing! Head, up, chest out, riding the wave. A face like a puppy. Really nice experience.

Bex01

Yeah Fits I was very lucky to have swam with it. Some people go out looking for whale sharks to swim with and can't find any.

Bernard Hopkins

where abouts were you diving ?.......... along the Ningaloo reef,....
tried to go to Exmouth in Janurary but the cyclones were passing theu the week i was going to spend there

hoping to go back next year , God willing.